WOMAN'S 
LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS 



CARL HOLLIDAY 

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences 
Professor of English, University of Toledo 

Author of 
THE WIT AND HUMOR OF COLONIAL DAYS, ENGLISH 
FICTION FROM THE FIFTH TO THE TWENTIETH 
CENTURY, A HISTORY OF SOUTHERN LITER- 
ATURE. THE WRITI^GS OF COLONIAL 
VIRGINIA, THE CAVALIER POETS, 
THREE CENTURIES OF SOUTH- 
ERN POETRY, ETC. 




THE CORNHILL PUBLISHING CO. 

BOSTON 



i Q O 



Copyright 1922 

bt the cornhill publishing company 



THE JORDAN & MORE PRESS 
BOSTON 

g)C!.A66i702 



TO 

THAT SOCIETY 

WHICH HAS SO ZEALOUSLY 

MAINTAINED AMERICAN TRADITIONS 

THE DAUGHTERS 
OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

THIS BOOK 
IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 



WOMAN'S LIFE IV COLONIAL DAYS 



PREFACE 

This book is an attempt to portray by means of the 
writings of colonial days the life of the women of that 
period, — how they lived, what their work and their 
play, what and how they thought and felt, their strength 
and their weakness, the joys and the sorrows of their 
every-day existence. Through such an attempt per- 
haps we can more nearly understand how and why the 
American woman is what she is to-day. 

For a long time to come, one of the principal reasons 
for the study of the writings of America will lie, not in 
their intrinsic merit alone, but in their revelations of 
American life, ideals, aspirations, and social and intel- 
lectual endeavors. We Americans need what Professor 
Shorey has called " the controlling consciousness of 
tradition." We have not sufficiently regarded the 
bond that connects our present institutions with their 
origins in the days of our forefathers. That is one of thff 
main purposes of this study, and the author believes 
that through contributions of such a character he can 
render the national intellectual spirit at least as valuable 
a service as he could through a study of some legend of 
ancient Britain or some epic of an extinct race. As Mr. 
Percy Boynton has said, " To foster in a whole genera- 
tion some clear recognition of other qualities in America 
than its bigness, and of other distinctions between the 
past and the present than that they are far apart is to 
contribute towards the consciousness of a national 



viii Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

individuality which vs the first essential of national life. 
. . . We must put our minds upon ourselves, we must 
look to our past and to our present, and then intelli- 
gently to our future." 

The author has endeavored to follow such advice by 
bringing forward those qualities of colonial womanhood 
which have made for the refinement, the intellectuality, 
the spirit, the aggressiveness, and withal the genuine 
womanliness of the present-day American woman. As 
the book is not intended for scholars alone, the author 
has felt free when he had not original source material 
before him to quote now and then from the studies of 
writers on other phases of colonial life — such as the 
valuable books by Dr. Phihp Alexander Bruce, Dr. John 
Bassett, Dr. George Sydney Fisher, Charles C. Coffin, 
Alice Brown, Alice Morse Earle, Anna Hollingsworth 
Wharton, and Geraldine Brooks. 

The author believes that many misconceptions have 
crept into the mind of the average reader concerning the 
life of colonial women — ideas, for instance, of unending, 
long-faced gloom, constant fear of pleasure, repression of 
all normal emotions. It is hoped that this book will go 
far toward clearing the mind of the reader of such 
misconceptions, by showing that woman in colonial 
days knew love and passion, felt longing and aspiration, 
used the heart and the brain, very much as does her 
descendant of to-day. 

For permission to quote from the works mentioned 
hereafter, the author wishes to express his gratitude to 
Sydney G. Fisher and the J. B. Lippincott Company 
{Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Days), Ralph L. 
Bartlett, executor for Charles C. Coffin {Old Times in 



Preface ix 

Colonial Days), Alice Brown and Charles Scribner's 
Sons (Mercy Warren), Philip Alexander Bruce and the 
Macmillan Company {Institutional History of Virginia 
in the Seventeenth Century), Anne H. Wharton {Martha 
Washington), John Spencer Bassett {Writings of Colonel 
Byrd), Alice Earle Hyde {Alice Morse Earl's Child Life 
in Colonial Days), Geraldine Brooks and Thomas Y. 
Crowell Company {Dames and Daughters of Colonial 
Days). The author wishes to acknowledge his deep 
indebtedness to the late Sylvia Brady Holliday, whose 
untiring investigations of the subject while a student 
under him contributed much to this book. 

C. H. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I 

COLONIAL WOMAN AND RELIGION .... 3 
I. The Spirit of Woman — The Suffering of Women — 
The Era of Adventure — Privation and Death in the First 
Colonial Days — Descriptions by Prince, Bradford, Johnson, 
etc. — Early Concord. II. Woman and Her Rehgion — Its 
Unyieldmg Quahty — Its Repressive Effect on Woman — Wig- 
glesworth's Day of Doom — What It Taught Woman — Neces- 
sity of Early Baptism — Edwards' Eternity of Hell Torment — 
Sinners m the Hands of an Angry God — Effect on Womanhood 

— Personal Devils — Dangers of Earthly Love — God's 
Sudden Pumshments. III. Inherited Nervousness — Fears 
in Childhood — Theological Precocity. IV. Woman's Day 
?f ^?f ^~ Sabbath Rules and Customs — A Typical Sabbath. 

V. Rehgion and Women's Foibles — Rehgious Regulations — 
Effect on Dress — Women's Singing in Church — Southern 
Opimon of Northern Severity — Effect of Feminine Repression. 

VI. Women's Comfort in Religion — An Intolerant Era — 
Rehgious Gatherings for Women — Formal Meetings with Mrs. 
Hutcliinson — Causes of Complaint — Meetings of Quaker 
Women. VII. Female RebeUion —The Antinomians — Activ- 
ities of Anne Hutchinson — Her Doctrines — Her Banishment 

— Emotional Starvation — Dread of Heresy — Anne Hutchin- 
son s Death. VIII. Woman and Witchcraft — Universal 
Belief in Witchcraft — Signs of Witchcraft — Causes of the 
Behef — Lack of Recreation — Origin of Witchcraft Mania — 
Echoes from the Trials — Waning of the Mania. IX. Rehgion 
Outside of New England — First Church in Virginia — South- 
ern Strictness — Woman's Religious Testimony — Religious 
Samty — The Dutch Church — General Conclusions. 

Chapter II 

COLONIAL WOMAN AND EDUCATION . . . .70 
I. Feminine Ignorance — Reasons — The Evidence in Court 
Records — Dtime's Schools — School Curriculum — Training 
in Home Duties. II. Woman's Education in the South — 
Jefferson's Advice — Private Tutors — General Interest in 
Education — Provision in Wills. III. Brilhant Exceptions 
to Female Ignorance — Southern and Northern Women Con- 
trasted—Unusual Studies for Women — Ehza Pinckney — 



xii Womati's Life in Colonial Days 

Jane Turrell — Abigail Adams. IV. Practical Education — 
Abigail Adams' Opinion — Importance of Bookkeeping — 
Franklin's Advice. V. Educational Frills — Female Semi- 
naries — Moravian Schools — Dancing — Etiquette — Rules 
for Eating — Mechanical Aids Toward Uprightness — Com- 
plaints of Educational Poverty — Fancy Sewing — General 
Conclusions. 

Chapter III 

COLONIAL WOMAN AND THE HOME ... .95 
I. Charm of the Colonial Home — Lack of Counter Attrac- 
tions — Neither Saints nor Sinners in the Home. II. Domes- 
tic Love and Confidence — The Winthrop Love Letters — 
Edwards' Rhapsody — Further Examples — Descriptions of 
Home Life — Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Hamilton at Home. 
III. Domestic Toil and Strain — South vs. North — Lack of 
Conveniences — Silver and Linen — Colonial Cooking — Cook- 
ing Utensils — Specimen Meals — Home Manufactures. IV. 
Domestic Pride — Effect of Anti-British Sentiment — Spinning 
Circles — Dress-Making. V. Special Domestic Tasks — Sup- 
plying Necessities — Candles — Soap — Herbs — Neighborly 
Co-operation — Social " Bees." VI. The Size of the Family — 
Large FamiUes an Asset — Astonishing Examples — Infant 
Death-Rate — Children as Workers. VII. Indian Attacks 

— Suffering of Captive Women — Mary Rowlandson's Account 

— Returning the Kidnapped. VIII. Parental Training — 
Co-operation Between Parents — Cotton Mather as Disciplina- 
rian — Sewall's Methods — EUza Pinckney's Motherliness — 

— New York Mothers — Abigail Adams to Her Son. IX. 
Tributes to Colonial Mothers — Judge SewaU's Noble Words — 
Other Specimens of Praise — John Lawson's Views — Woman's 
Strengthening Influence. X. Interest in the Home — Frank- 
lin's Interest — Evidence from Jefferson — Sewall's Affection — 
Washington's Relaxation — John Adams with the Children — 
Examples of Considerateness — Mention of Gifts. XL 
Woman's Sphere — Opposition to Broader Activities — A Sad 
Example — Opinions of Colonial Leaders — Woman's Content- 
ment with Her Sphere — Woman's Helpfulness — Distress of 
Mrs. Benedict Arnold. XII. Woman in Business — Husbands' 
Confidence in Wives' Shrewdness — Evidence from Frank- 
lin — Abigail Adams as Manager — General Conclusions. 

Chapter IV 
COLONIAL WOMAN AND DRESS 152 

I. Dress Regulations by Law — Magistrates vs. Women — 
Fines. II. Contemporary Descriptions of Dress — Effect 
of Wealth and Travel — Madame Knight's Descriptions — 



Contents xiii 

Testimony by Sewall, Franklin, Abigail Adams. III. Raillery 
and Scolding — Nathaniel Ward on Woman's Costume — 
Newspaper Comments — Advertisement of Hoop Petticoats — 
Evidence on the Size of Hoops — Hair-Dressing — Feminine 
Rephes to Raillery. IV. Extravagance in Dress — Chastel- 
lux's Opinion — Evidence from Account Books — Children's 
Dress — Fashions in Philadelphia and New York — A Gentle- 
man's Dress — Dolly Madison's Costume — The Meschianza — 
A Ball Dress — Dolls as Models — Men's Jokes on Dress — In- 
crease in Cost of Raiment. 



Chapter V 

OLONIAL WOMAN AND SOCIAL LIFE . . .174 

I. Southern Isolation and Hospitality — Progress through 
Wealth — Care-free Life of the South — Social Effect of 
Tobacco Raising — Historians' Opinions of the Social Life — 
Early Growth of Virginia HospitaUty — John Hammond's 
Description in 1656 — Effect of Cavalier Blood — Beverly's 
Description of Virginia Social Life — Foreign Opinions of 
Virginia Luxury and Culture. II. Splendor in the Home — 
Fithian's Description of a Southern Mansion — Elegant 
Furnishings of the Time. III. Social Activities — Evidence 
in Invitations — EUza Pinckney's Opinion of Carolinians — 
Open-House — Washington's Hospitable Record — Art and 
Music in the South — A Reception to a Bride — Old-Time 
Refreshments — Informal Visiting — A Letter by Mrs. Wash- 
ington — Social Effects of Slow Travel. IV. New England 
Social Life — Social Influence of Public Opinion — Cautious 
Attitude Toward Pleasm^e — Social Origin of Yankee Inquisi- 
tiveness — Sewall's Records of Social Affairs — Pynchon's 
Records of a Century Later. V. Funerals as Recreations — 
Grim Pleasure in Attending — Funeral Cards — Gifts of Gloves, 
Rings, and Scarfs — Absence of Depression — Records of 
Sewall's Attendance — Wane of Gift-Giving — A New Amster- 
dam Funeral. VI. Trials and Executions — Puritan Itching 
for Morbid and Sensational — Frankness of Descriptions — 
Treatment of Condemned Criminals — The Public at Execu- 
tions — Sewall's Description of an Execution — Coming of 
More Normal Entertairunents — The Dancing Master Arrives. 
VII. Special Social Days — Lecture Day — Prayers for the 
Afflicted — Fast Days — Scant Attention to Thanksgiving and 
Christmas — How Bradford Stopped Christmas Observation — 
Sewall's Records of Christmas — A Century Later. VIII. 
Social Restrictions — Josselyn's Account of New England 
Restraints — Growing Laxity — Sarah Knight's Description — 
Severity in 1780 — Laws Against Lodging Relatives of the 



xiv Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

Opposite Sex — What Could not be Done in 1650 — Husking 
Parties and Other Community Efforts. IX. Dutch Social 
Life — Its Pleasant Familiarity — Mrs. Grant's Descriptions of 
Early New York — Normal Pleasures — - Love of Flowers and 
Children — Love of Eating — Mrs. Grant's Record — Disre- 
gard for Rehgion — Mating the Children — Picnicking — Pecu- 
liar Customs at Dutch Funerals. X. British Social Influences 
— Increase of Wealth — The Schuyler Home — Mingling of 
Gaiety and Economy — A Description in 1757 — Foreign 
Astonishment at New York Display — Richness of Woman's 
Adornment — Card-Playing and Dancing — Gambhng in So- 
ciety. XL Causes of Display and FrivoUty — Washington's 
Punctiliousness — Mrs. Washington's Dislike of Stateliness — 
Disgust of the Democratic — Senator Maclay's Description of 
a Dinner by Washington — Permanent Benefit of Washington's 
Formality — Elizabeth Southgate's Record of New York Pas- 
times. XII. Society in Philadelphia — Social Welcome for 
the British — Early Instruction in Dancing — Formal Dancing 
Assembhes. XIII. The Beauty of Philadelphia Women — 
Abigail Adams' Description — The Accomplished Mrs. Bing- 
ham — Introduction of Social Fads — Contrasts with New 
York Belles. XIV. Social Functions — Lavish Use of Wealth 
at Philadelphia — Washington's Birthday — Martha Washing- 
ton in Philadelphia — Domestic AbiUty of the Belles — Frank- 
lin and his Daughter — General Wayne's Statement about 
Philadelphia Gaiety. XV. Theatrical Performances — Their 
Growth in Popularity — Washington's Liking for Them — 
Mrs. Adams' Description — First Performance in New York, 
Charleston, WilUamsburg, Baltimore — Invading the Stage — 
Throwing Missiles. XVI. Strange Customs in Louisiana — 
Passion for Pleasure — Influence of Creoles and Negroes — 
Habitat for Sailors and West Indian Ruffians — Reasons for 
Vice — Accounts by Berquin -Duvallon — Commonness of 
Concubinage — Alhott's Description — Reasons for Aversion 
to Marriage — Corruptness of Fathers and Sons — Drawing 
the Color Line — Race Prejudice at Balls — Fine Qualities of 
Louisiana White Women — Excess in Dress — Lack of Educa- 
tion — Berquin-Duvallon's Disgust — The Murder of Babes — 
General Conclusions. 

Chapter VI 

COLONIAL WOMAN AND MARRIAGE . . . .2^7 
I. New England Weddings — Lack of Ceremony and 
Merrymaking — Freedom of Choice for Women — The 
Parents' Permission — Evidence from Sewall — Penalty for 
Toying with the Heart — The Dowry. II. Judge Sewall's 
Courtships — Independence of Colonial Women — Sewall and 



Contents xv 

Madam Winthrop — His Friends' Urgings — His Marriage to 
Mrs. Tilley — Madam Winthrop's Hard-Hearted Manner — 
Sewall Looks Elsewhere for a Wife — Success Again. III. 
Liberty to Choose — Eliza Pinckney's Letter on the Matter — 
Betty Sewall's Rejection of Lovers. IV. The Banns and the 
Ceremony — Banns Required in Nearly all Colonies — Preju- 
dice against the Service of Preachers — Sewall's Descriptions of 
Weddings — Sewall's Efforts to Prevent Preachers from Officiat- 
ing — Refreshments at Weddings — Increase in Hilarity. 
V. Matrimonial Restrictions — Reasons for Them — Fre- 
quency of Bigamy — Monthly Fines — Marriage with Rela- 
tives. VI. Spinsters — Youthful Marriages — Bachelors and 
Spinsters Viewed with Suspicion — Fate of Old Maids — 
Description of a Boston Spinster. VII. Separation and 
Divorce — Rarity of Them — Separation in Sewall's Family — 
Its Tragedy and Comedy. VIII. Marriage in Pennsylvania 

— Approach Toward Laxness — Ben FrankUn's Marriage — 
Quaker Marriages — Strange Mating among Moravians — 
Dutch Marriages. IX. Marriage in the South — Church 
Service Required by Pubhc Sentiment — Merrymaking — 
Buying Wives — Indented Servants — John Hammond's Ac- 
count of Them. X. Romance in Marriage — Benedict Ar- 
nold's Proposal — Hamilton's Opinion of His " Betty " — The 
Charming Romance of Agnes Surrage. XL Feminine Inde- 
pendence — Treason at the Tongue's End — Independence of 
the Schuyler Girls. XII. Matrimonial Advice — Jane Tur- 
ell's Advice to Herself. XIII. Matrimonial Irregularities — 
Frequency of Them — Cause of Such Troubles — Winthrop's 
Records of Cases — Death as a Penalty — Law against Mar- 
riage of Relatives — No Discrimination in Punishment because 
of Sex — Sewall's Accounts of Executions — Use of the Scarlet 
Letter — Records by Howard — Custom of Bundling — Its 
Origin — Adultery between Indented White Women and 
Negroes — Punishment in Virginia — Instances of the Social 
Evil in New England — Less Shame among Colonial Men. 
XIV. Violent Speech and Action — RebeUious Speech against 
the Church — Amazonian Wives — Citations from Court 
Records — Punishment for Slander. 

Chapter VII 

COLONIAL WOMAN AND THE INITIATIVE . . .291 
I. Religious Initiative — Anne Hutchinson's Use of Brains 

— Bravery of Quaker Women — Perseverance of Mary Dyer — 
Martyrdom of Quakers. II. Commercial Initiative — 
Dabbling in State Affairs — Women as Merchants — Mrs. 
Franklin in Business — Pay for Women Teachers — Women 



xvi Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

as Plantation Managers — Example of Eliza Pinckney — 
Her Busy Day — Martha Washington as Manager. III. 
Woman's Legal Powers — Right to Own and Will Property — 
John Todd's WiU — A Church Attempts to Cheat a Woman — 
Astonishing Career of Margaret Brent — Women Fortify 
Boston Neck — Tompson's Satire on it — Feminine Initiative at 
Nantucket. IV. Patriotic Initiative and Courage — Evidence 
from Letters — The Anxiety of the Women — Women Near the 
Firing-Line — Mrs. Adams in Danger — Martha Washington's 
Valor — Mrs. Pinckney's Optimism — Her Financial Dis- 
tress — Entertaining the Enemy — Marion's Escape — Mrs. 
Pinckney's Presence of Mind — Abigail Adams' Brave Words — 
Her Description of a Battle — Man's Appreciation of Woman's 
Bravery — Mercy Warren's Calmness — Catherine Schuyler's 
Valiant Deed — How She Treated Burgoyne — Some General 
Conclusions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 313 

INDEX 315 



t 



Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

CHAPTER I 
Colonial Woman and Religion 

/. The Spirit of Woman 

With what a vahant and unyielding spirit our fore- 
fathers met the unspeakable hardships of the first days 
of American colonization! We of these softer and more 
abundant times can never quite comprehend what dis- 
tress, what positive suffering those bold souls of the 
seventeenth century endured to establish a new people 
among the nations of the world. The very voyage 
from England to America might have daunted the brav- 
est of spirits. Note but this glimpse from an account by 
Colonel Norwood in his Voyage to Virginia: " Women 
and children made dismal cries and grievous complaints. 
The infinite number of rats that all the voyage had been 
our plague, we now were glad to make our prey to feed 
on; and as they were insnared and taken a well grown 
rat was sold for sixteen shillings as a market rate. Nay, 
before the voyage did end (as I was credibly informed) 
a woman great with child offered twenty shillings for a 
rat, which the proprietor refusing, the woman died." 

That was an era of restless, adventurous spirits — 
men and women filled with the rich and danger-loving 



4 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

blood of the Elizabethan day. We should recall that 
every colony of the original thirteen, except Georgia, 
was founded in the seventeenth century when the energy 
of that great and versatile period of the Virgin Queen 
had not yet dissipated itself. The spirit that moved 
Ben Jonson and Shakespeare to undertake the new and 
untried in literature was the same spirit that moved 
John Smith and his cavaliers to invade the Virginia 
wilderness, and the Pilgrim Fathers to found a common- 
wealth for freedom's sake on a stern and rock-bound 
coast. It was the day of Milton, Dryden, and Bunyan, 
the day of the Protectorate with its fanatical defenders, 
the day of the rise and fall of British Puritanism, the 
day of the Revolution of 1688 which forever doomed the 
theory of the divine rights of monarchs, the day of the 
bloody Thirty Years' War with its consequent downfall 
of aristocracy, the day of the Grand Monarch in France 
with its accumulating preparations for the destruction of 
kingly rights and the rise of the Commons. 

In such an age we can but expect bold adventures. 
The discovery and exploration of the New World and the 
defeat of the Spanish Armada had now made England 
monarch of sea and land. The imagination of the people 
was aroused, and tales of a wealth like that of Croesus 
came from mariners who had sailed the seven seas, 
and were willingly believed by an excited audience. 
Indeed the nations stood ready with open-mouthed 
wonder to accept all stories, no matter how marvelous 
or preposterous. America suddenly appeared to all 
people as the land that offered wealth, religious and 
political freedom, a home for the poor, a refuge for the 
persecuted, in truth, a paradise for all who would begin 



Colonial Woman and Religion 5 

life anew. With such a vision and with such a spirit 
many came. The same energy that created a Lear and 
a Hamlet created a Jamestown and a Plymouth. Shake- 
speare was at the height of his career when Jamestown 
was settled, and had been dead less than five years when 
the Puritans landed at Plymouth. Impelled by the 
soul of such a day Puritan and Cavalier sought the new 
land, hoping to find there that which they had been 
unable to attain in the Old World. 

While from the standpoint of years the Cavalier colony 
at Jamestown might be entitled to the first discussion, 
it is with the Puritans that we shall begin this investiga- 
tion. For, with the Puritan Fathers came the Puritan 
Mothers, and while the influence of those fathers on 
American civilization has been too vast ever to be 
adequately described, the influence of those brave 
pioneer women, while less ostentatious, is none the less 
powerful. 

What perils, what distress, what positive torture, not 
only physical but mental, those first mothers of America 
experienced! Sickness and famine were their daily 
portion in life. Their children, pushing ever westward, 
also underwent untold toil and distress, but not to the 
degree known by those founders of New England; for 
when the settlements of the later seventeenth century 
were established some part of the rawness and newness 
had worn away, friends were not far distant, supplies 
were not wanting for long periods, and if the privations 
were intense, there were always the original settlements 
to fall back upon. Hear what Thomas Prince in his 
Annals of New England, published in 1726, has to say 
of those first days in the Plymouth Colony: 



6 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

"March 24. (1621) N. B. This month Thirteen 
of our number die. And in three months past die Half 
our Company. The greatest part in the depth of winter, 
wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with 
the scurvy and other diseases, which their long voyage 
and unaccommodate conditions bring upon them. So 
as there die, sometimes, two or three a day. Of one 
hundred persons, scarce fifty remain. The living 
scarce able to bury the dead; the well not sufficient to 
tend the sick: there being, in their time of greatest 
distress, but six or seven; who spare no pains to help 
them. . . . But the spring advancing, it pleases GOD, 
the mortality begins to cease; and the sick and lame to 
recover: which puts new life into the people; though 
they had borne their sad affliction with as much patience 
as any could do."^ 

Indeed, as we read of that struggle with famine, 
sickness, and death during the first few years of the 
Plymouth Colony we can but marvel that human flesh 
and human soul could withstand the onslaught. The 
brave old colonist Bradford, confirms in his History 
of Plymouth Plantation the stories told by others: " But 
that which was most sad and lamentable, was that in 
two or three months' time half of their company died, 
especially in January and February, being the depth of 
winter . . . that of one hundred and odd persons scarce 
fifty remained : and of these in the time of most distress 
there was but six or seven sound persons; who to their 
great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains, 
night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard 
of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, 

• Reprinted in Englith Gamer, Vol. II, p. 429. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 7 

. . . in a word did all the homely, and necessary offices 
for them." 

The conditions were the same whether in the Plymouth 
or in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And yet how 
brave — how pathetically brave — was the colonial 
woman under every affliction. In hours when a less 
valiant womanhood would have sunk in despair these 
wives and mothers strengthened one another and praised 
God for the humble sustenance He allowed them. The 
sturdy colonist, Edward Johnson, in his Wonder Work- 
ing Providence of Zions Saviour in New England, writing 
of the privations of 1631, the year after his colony had 
been founded, pays this tribute to the helpmeets of the 
men: 

" The women once a day, as the tide gave way, resorted 
to the mussels, and clambanks, which are a fish as big 
as horse-mussels, where they daily gathered their families' 
food with much heavenly discourse of the provisions 
Christ had formerly made for many thousands of his 
followers in the wilderness. Quoth one, * My husband 
hath travelled as far as Plymouth (which is near forty 
miles), and hath with great toil brought a little corn home 
with him, and before that is spent the Lord will assuredly 
provide.' Quoth the other, ' Our last peck of meal is 
now in the oven at home a-baking, and many of our 
godly neighbors have quite spent all, and we owe one 
loaf of that little we have.' Then spake a third, ' My 
husband hath ventured himself among the Indians for 
corn, and can get none, as also our honored Governor 
hath distributed his so far, that a day or two more will 
put an end to his store, and all the rest, and yet me- 
thinks our children are as cheerful, fat and lusty with 



8 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

feeding upon these mussels, clambanks, and other fish, 
as they were in England with their fill of bread, which 
makes me cheerful in the Lord's providing for us, being 
further confirmed by the exhortation of our pastor to 
trust the Lord with providing for us; whose is the earth 
and the fulness thereof.' " 

It is a genuine pleasure to us of little faith to note that 
such trust was indeed justified; for, continues Johnson: 
" As they were encouraging one another in Christ's 
careful providing for them, they lift up their eyes and 
saw two ships coming in, and presently this news came 
to their ears, that they were come — full of victuals. . . . 
After this manner did Christ many times graciously 
provide for this His people, even at the last cast." 

If we will stop to consider the fact that many of these 
women of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were accus- 
tomed to the comfortable living of the middle-class 
country people of England, with considerable material 
wealth and even some of the luxuries of modern civiliza- 
tion, we may imagine, at least in part, the terrifying 
contrast met with in the New World. For conditions 
along the stormy coast of New England were indeed 
primitive. Picture the founding, for instance, of a 
town that later was destined to become the home of 
philosopher and seer — Concord, Massachusetts. Says 
Johnson in his Wonder Working Providence: 

" After they had thus found out a place of abode they 
burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter, 
under some hillside, casting the earth aloft upon timber; 
they make a smoke fire against the earth at the highest 
side and thus these poor servants of Christ provide 
shelter for themselves, their wives and little ones, keep- 



Colonial Woman and Religion 9 

ing off the short showers from their lodgings, but the 
long rains penetrate through to their great disturbance 
in the night season. Yet in these poor wigwams they 
sing psalms, pray and praise their God till they can 
provide them houses, which ordinarily was not wont to 
be with many till the earth by the Lord's blessing brought 
forth bread to feed them, their wives and little ones. . . . 
Thus this poor people populate this howling desert, 
marching manfully on, the Lord assisting, through the 
greatest difficulties and sorest labors that ever any with 
such weak means have done." 

And Margaret Winthrop writes thus to her step-son 
in England: " When I think of the troublesome times 
and manyfolde destractions that are in our native 
Countrye, I thinke we doe not pryse oure happinesse 
heare as we have cause, that we should be in peace when 
so many troubles are in most places of the world." 

Many another quotation could be presented to empha- 
size the impressions given above. Reading these after 
the lapse of nearly three centuries, we marvel at the 
strength, the patience, the perseverance, the imperisha- 
ble hope, trust, and faith of the Puritan woman. Such 
hardships and privations as have been described above 
might seem sufficient; but these were by no means all 
or even the greatest of the trials of womanhood in the 
days of the nation's childhood. To understand in any 
measure at all the life of a child or a wife or a mother of 
the Puritan colonies with its strain and suffering, we 
must know and comprehend her rehgion. Let us ex- 
amine this — the dominating influence of her life. 



10 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

II. Woman and Her Religion 
Paradoxical as it may seem, religion was to the 
colonial woman both a blessing and a curse. Though 
it gave courage and some comfort it was as hard and 
unyielding as steel. We of this later hour may well 
shudder when we read the sermons of Cotton Mather 
and Jonathan Edwards; but if the mere reading causes 
astonishment after the lapse of these hundreds of years, 
what terror the messages must have inspired in those 
who lived under their terrific indictments, prophecies, 
and warnings. Here was a religion based on Judaism 
and the Mosaic code, '' an eye for an eye, and a tooth for 
a tooth." Moses Coit Tyler has declared in his History 
of American Literature-? " They did not attempt to 
combine the sacred and the secular; they simply abol- 
ished the secular and left only the sacred. The state 
became the church; the king a priest; politics a depart- 
ment of theology; citizenship the privilege of those only 
who had received baptism and the Lord's Supper." 

And what an idea of the sacred was theirs! The 
gentleness, the mercy, the loving kindness that are of 
God so seldom enter into those ancient discussions that 
such attributes are almost negligible. Michael Wiggles- 
worth's poem, The Day of Doom, published in 1662, may 
be considered as an authoritative treatise on the theology 
of the Puritans; for it not only was so popular as to 
receive several reprints, but was sanctioned by the elders 
of the church themselves. If this was orthodoxy — 
and the proof that it was is evident — it was of a sort 
that might well sour and embitter the nature of man 
and fill the gentle soul of womanhood with fear and dark 

2 Vol. I, p. 101. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 11 

forebodings. We well know that the Puritans thor- 
oughly believed that man's nature was weak and sinful, 
and that the human soul was a prisoner placed here 
upon earth by the Creator to be surrounded with tempta- 
tions. This God is good, however, in that he has given 
man an opportunity to overcome the surrounding evils, 

" But I'm a prisoner, 

Under a heavy chain; 
Almighty God's afflicting hand, 
Doth me by force restrain. 

" But why should I complain 
That have so good a God, 
That doth mine heart with comfort fill 
Ev'n whilst I feel his rod? 

" Let God be magnified. 

Whose everlasting strength 
Upholds me under sufferings 

Of more than ten years' length." 

The Day of Doom is, in the main, its author's vision of 
judgment day, and, whatever artistic or theological 
defects it may have, it undeniably possesses realism. 
For instance, several stanzas deal with one of the most 
dreadful doctrines of the Puritan faith, that all infants 
who died unbaptized entered into eternal torment — 
a theory that must have influenced profoundly the happi- 
ness and woe of colonial women. The poem describes 
for us what was then believed should be the scene on 
that final day when young and old, heathen and Chris- 
tian, saint and sinner, are called before their God to 
answer for their conduct in the flesh. Hear the plea of 
the infants, who, dying at birth before baptism could be 



12 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

administered, asked to be relieved from punishment on 
the grounds that they have committed no sin. 

" If for our own transgression, 

or disobedience, 
We here did stand at thy left hand, 

just were tlie Recompense; 
But Adam's guilt our souls hath spilt, 

his fault is charg'd upon us; 
And that alone hath overthrown and utterly 

undone us." 

Pointing out that it was Adam who ate of the tree and 
that they were innocent, they ask: 

" O great Creator, why was our nature 

depraved and forlorn? 
Why so defil'd, and made so vil'd, 

whilst we were yet unborn? 
If it be just, and needs we must 

transgressors reckon'd be. 
Thy mercy. Lord, to us afford, 

which sinners hath set free." 

But the Creator answers: 

" God doth such doom forbid. 
That men should die eternally 

for what they never did. 
But what you call old Adam's fall, 

and only his trespass. 
You call amiss to call it his, 

both his and yours it was." 

The Judge then inquires why, since they would have 
received the pleasures and joys which Adam could have 
given them, the rewards and blessings, should they 
hesitate to share his " treason." 



Colonial Woman and Religion 13 

" Since then to share in his welfare, 

you could have been content, 
You may with reason share in his treason, 

and in the punishment, 
Hence you were born in state forlorn, 

with natures so depraved 
Death was your due because that you 

had thus yourselves behaved. 

" Had you been made in Adam's stead, 

you would Uke things have wrought, 
And so into the self-same woe 

yourselves and yours have brought." 

Then follows a reprimand upon the part of the Judge 
because they should presume to question His judgments, 
and to ask for mercy: 

" Will you demand grace at my hand, 
and challenge what is mine? 
Will you teach me whom to set free, 
and thus my grace confine. 

" You sinners are, and such a share 
as sinners may expect; 
Such you shall have, for I do save 
none but mine own Elect. 

" Yet to compare your sin with theirs 
who liv'd a longer time, 
I do confess yours is much less 
though every sin's a crime. 

" A crime it is, therefore in bUss 
you may not hope to dwell; 
But unto you I shall allow 
the easiest room in Hell." 

Would not this cause anguish to the heart of any 
mother? Indeed, we shall never know what intense 



14 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

anxiety the Puritan woman may have suffered during the 
few days intervening between the hour of the birth and 
the date of the baptism of her infant. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that an exceedingly brief period was 
allowed to elapse before the babe was taken from its 
mother's arms and carried through snow and wind to the 
desolate church. Judge Sewall, whose Diary covers 
most of the years from 1686 to 1725, and who records 
every petty incident from the cutting of his finger to the 
blowing off of the Governor's hat, has left us these notes 
on the baptism of some of his fourteen children: 

"April 8, 1677. Ehzabeth Weeden, the Midwife, 
brought the infant to the third Church when Sermon 
was about half done in the afternoon ... I named him 
John." (Five days after birth. )^ " Sabbath-day, De- 
cember 13th 1685. Mr. Willard baptizeth my Son lately 
born, whom I named Henry." (Four days after birth.)* 
"February 6, 1686-7. Between 3 and 4 P. M. Mr. 
Willard baptizeth my Son, whom I named Stephen." 
(Five days after birth. )^ 

Little wonder that infant mortality was exceedingly 
high, especially when the baptismal service took place 
on a day as cold as this one mentioned by Sewall: 
" Sabbath, Janr. 24 . . . This day so cold that the 
Sacramental Bread is frozen pretty hard, and rattles 
sadly as broken into the Plates."^ We may take it for 
granted that the water in the font was rapidly freezing, 
if not entirely frozen, and doubtless the babe, shrinking 
under the icy touch, felt inclined to give up the struggle 

« Sewall'a Diary. Vol. I, p. 40. 
«76id, Vol. I. p. 111. 
• Ibid, Vol. I, p. 167. 
» Diary, Vol. I. p. 116. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 15 

for existence, and decline a further reception into so cold 
and forbidding a world. Once more hear a description 
by the kindly, but abnormally orthodox old Judge: 
" Lord's Day, Jany 15, 1715-16. An extraordinary 
Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. . . . Bread was frozen 
at the Lord's Table: Though 'twas so Cold, yet John 
Tuckerman was baptised. At six a-clock my ink freezes 
so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my Wive's 
Chamber. Yet was very Comfortable at Meeting. 
Laus Deo."^ 

But let us pass to other phases of this theology under 
which the Puritan woman lived. The God pictured 
in the Day of Doom not only was of a cruel and angry 
nature but was arbitrary beyond modern belief. His 
wrath fell according to his caprice upon sinner or saint. 
We are tempted to inquire as to the strange mental 
process that could have led any human being to believe 
in such a Creator. Regardless of doctrine, creed, or 
theology, we cannot totally dissociate our earthly mental 
condition from that in the future state; we cannot refuse 
to believe that we shall have the same intelligent mind, 
and the same ability to understand, perceive, and love. 
Apparently, however, the Puritan found no difficulty 
in believing that the future existence entailed an entire 
change in the principles of love and in the emotions of 
sympathy and pity. 

" He that was erst a husband pierc'd 
with sense of wife's distress, 
Whose tender heart did bear a part 
of all her grievances. 

' Diary, Vol. III. p. 71. 



16 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Shall mourn no more as heretofore, 

because of her ill pUght, 
Although he see her now to be 

a damn'd forsaken wight. 

" The tender mother will own no other 
of all her num'rous brood 
But such as stand at Christ's right hand, 

acquitted through his Blood. 
The pious father had now much rather 

his graceless son should lie 
In hell with devils, for all his evils, 
burning eternally." 

{Day of Doom.) 

But we do not have to trust to Michael Wiggles- 
worth's poem alone for a realistic conception of the God 
and the rehgion of the Puritans. It is in the sermons of 
the day that we discover a still more unbending, harsh, 
and hideous view of the Creator and his characteristics. 
In the thunderings of Cotton Mather and Jonathan 
Edwards, we, like the colonial women who sat so meekly 
in the high, hard benches, may fairly smell the brim- 
stone of the Nether World. Why, exclaims Jonathan 
Edwards in his sermon, The Eternity of Hell Torments: 

" Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment 
forever and ever; to suffer it day and night, from one 
day to another, from one year to another, from one age 
to another, from one thousand ages to another, and so, 
adding age to age, and thousands to thousands, in pain, 
in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking, and 
gnashing your teeth ; with your souls full of dreadful 
grief and amazement, with your bodies and every mem- 
ber full of racking torture, without any possibihty of 



Colonial Woman and Religion 17 

getting ease; without any possibility of moving God to 
pity by your cries; without any possibihty of hiding 
yourselves from him . . . How dismal will it be, when 
you are under these racking torments, to know assuredly 
that you never, never shall be delivered from them; 
to have no hope; when you shall wish that you might but 
be turned into nothing, but shall have no hope of it; 
when you shall wish that you might be turned into a 
toad or a serpent, but shall have no hope of it; when 
you would rejoice, if you might but have any relief, 
after you shall have endured these torments milhons of 
ages, but shall have no hope of it; when after you shall 
have worn out the age of the sun, moon, and stars, in 
your dolorous groans and lamentations, without any 
rest day or night, when after you shall have worn out a 
thousand more such ages, yet you shall have no hope, 
but shall know that you are not one whit nearer to the 
end of your torments; but that still there are the same 
groans, the same shrieks, the same doleful cries, inces- 
santly to be made by you, and that the smoke of your 
torment shall still ascend up, forever and ever; and that 
your souls, which shall have been agitated with the 
wrath of God all this while, yet will still exist to bear 
more wrath; your bodies, which shall have been burning 
and roasting all this while in these glowing flames, yet 
shall not have been consumed, but will remain to roast 
through an eternity yet, which will not have been at all 
shortened by what shall have been past." 

When we remember that to the Puritan man, woman, 
or child the message of the preacher meant the message 
of God, we may imagine what effect such words had on a 
colonial congregation. To the overwrought nerves of 



18 Womari's Life in Colonial Days 

many a Puritan woman, taught to believe meekly the 
doctrines of her father_, and weakened in body by cease- 
less childbearing and unending toil, such a picture must 
indeed have been terrifying. And the God that she and 
her husband heard described Sabbath after Sabbath 
was not only heartily willing to condemn man to eternal 
torment but capable of enjoying the tortures of the 
damned, and gloating in strange joy over the writhings 
of the condemned. Is it any wonder that in the midst 
of Jonathan Edward's sermon, Sinners in the Hands of 
an Angry God, men and women sprang to their feet and 
shrieked in anguish, " What shall we do to be saved? " 
*' The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as 
one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the 
fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath 
towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as 
worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; he is 
of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you 
are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes, as the 
most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours. You 
have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn 
rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand 
that holds you from falling into the fire every moment; 
it is ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell 
the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in 
this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep; and 
there is no other reason to be given why you have not 
dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but 
that God's hand has held you up; there is no other 
reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since 
you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his 
pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his 



Colonial Woman and Religion 19 

solemn worship: yea, there is nothing else that is to be 
given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop 
down into hell." 

Under such teachings the girl of colonial New England 
grew into womanhood; with such thoughts in mind she 
saw her children go down into the grave; with such fore- 
bodings she herself passed out into an uncertain Here- 
after. Nor was there any escape from such sermons; 
for church attendance was for many years compulsory, 
and even when not compulsory, was essential for those 
who did not wish to be politically and socially ostra- 
cized. The preachers were not, of course, required to 
give proof for their declarations; they might well have 
announced, " Thus saith the Lord "; but they preferred 
to enter into disquisitions bristling with arguments and 
so-called logical deductions. For instance, note in 
Edwards' sermon. Why Saints in Glory will Rejoice to 
see the Torments of the Damned, the chain of reasoning 
leading to the conclusion that those enthroned in heaven 
shall find joy in the unending torture of their less fortu- 
nate neighbors: 

" They will rejoice in seeing the justice of God glorified 
in the sufferings of the damned. The misery of the 
damned, dreadful as it is, is but what justice requires. 
They in heaven will see and know it much more clearly 
than any of us do here. They will see how perfectly 
just and righteous their punishment is and therefore 
how properly inflicted by the supreme Governor of the 
world. . . . They will rejoice when they see him who is 
their Father and eternal portion so glorious in his justice. 
The sight of this strict and immutable justice of God will 
render him amiable and adorable in their eyes. It will 



20 WomaTi's Life in Colonial Days 

occasion rejoicing in them, as they will have the greater 
sense of their own happiness, by seeing the contrary 
misery. It is the nature of pleasure and pain, of happi- 
ness and misery, greatly to heighten the sense of each 
other. . . . When they shall see how miserable others 
of their fellow-creatures are, who were naturally in the 
same circumstances with themselves; when they shall 
see the smoke of their torment, and the raging of the 
flames of their burning, and hear their dolorous shrieks 
and cries, and consider that they in the meantime are in 
the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all 
eternity; how will they rejoice! . . . When they shall 
see the dreadful miseries of the damned, and consider 
that they deserved the same misery, and that it was 
sovereign grace, and nothing else, which made them so 
much to differ from the damned, that if it had not been 
for that, they would have been in the same condition; 
but that God from all eternity was pleased to set his love 
upon them, that Christ hath laid down his life for them, 
and hath made them thus gloriously happy forever, O 
how will they adore that dying love of Christ, which has 
redeemed them from so great a misery, and purchased 
for them so great happiness, and has so distinguished 
them from others of their fellow-creatures! " 

It was a strange creed that led men to teach such 
theories. And when we learn that Jonathan Edwards 
was a man of singular gentleness and kind-heartedness, 
we realize that it must have tortured him to preach 
such doctrines, but that he believed it his sacred duty to 
do so. 

The religion, however, that the Puritan woman 
imbibed from girlhood to old age went further than this; 



Colonial Woman and Religion 21 

it taught the theory of a personal devil. To the New 
England colonists Satan was a very real individual 
capable of taking to himself a physical form with the 
proverbial tail, horns, and hoofs. Hear what Cotton 
Mather, one of the most eminent divines of early Massa- 
chusetts, has to say in his Memorable Providences about 
this highly personal Satan: '' There is both a God and 
a Devil, and Witchcraft: That there is no out-ward 
Affliction, but what God may (and sometimes doth) 
permit Satan to trouble his people withal: That the 
Malice of Satan and his Instruments, is very great 
against the Children of God: That the clearest Gospel- 
Light shining in a place, will not keep some from entering 
hellish Contracts with infernal Spirits: That Prayer is 
a powerful and effectual Remedy against the ma- 
licious practises of Devils and those in Covenant with 
thcm."8 

And His Satanic Majesty had legions of followers, 
equally insistent on tormenting humanity. In The 
Wonders of the Invisible World, published in 1692, 
Mather proves that there is a devil and that the being 
has specific attributes, powers, and limitations: 

" A devil is a fallen angel, an angel fallen from the 
fear and love of God, and from all celestial glories; but 
fallen to all manner of wretchedness and cursedness. . . . 
There are multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of 
destruction, where the devils are! When we speak of 
the devil, 'tis a name of multitude. . . . The devils 
they swarm about us, like the frogs of Egypt, in the most 
retired of our chambers. Are we at our boards? beds? 

' Original Narratives of Early Am. Hist., Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 
p. 96, 97. 



22 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

There will be devils to tempt us into carnality. Are we 
in our shops? There will be devils to tempt us into dis- 
honesty. Yea, though we get into the church of God, 
there will be devils to haunt us in the very temple itself, 
and there tempt us to manifold misbehaviors. I am 
verily persuaded that there are very few human affairs 
whereinto some devils are not insinuated. There is 
not so much as a journey intended, but Satan will have 
an hand in hindering or furthering of it. 

"... 'Tis to be supposed, that there is a sort of 
arbitrary, even military government, among the devils. 
. . . These devils have a prince over them, who is king 
over the children of pride. 'Tis probable that the devil, 
who was the ringleader of that mutinous and rebellious 
crew which first shook off the authority of God, is now 
the general of those hellish armies; our Lord that 
conquered him has told us the name of him; 'tis Belze- 
bub; 'tis he that is the devil and the rest are his angels, 
or his soldiers. . . . 'Tis to be supposed that some devils 
are more peculiarly commission'd, and perhaps qualify'd, 
for some countries, while others are for others. ... It 
is not likely that every devil does know every language; 
or that every devil can do every mischief. 'Tis possible 
that the experience, or, if I may call it so, the education 
of all devils is not alike, and that there may be some 
difference in their abilities. ..." 

What was naturally the effect of such a faith upon the 
sensitive nerves of the women of those days? Viewed 
in its larger aspects this was an objective, not a sub- 
jective religion. It could but make the sensitive soul 
super-sensitive, introspective, morbidly alive to uncanny 
and weird suggestions, and strangely afraid of the 



Colonial Woman and Religion 23 

temptation of enjoying earthly pleasures. Its followers 
dared not allow themselves to become deeply attached 
to anything temporal; for such an emotion was the 
device of the devil, and God would surely remove the 
object of such affection. Whether through anger or 
jealousy or kindness, the Creator did this, the Puritan 
woman seems not to have stopped to consider; her 
behef was sufficient that earthly desires and even natural 
love must be repressed. Winthrop, a staunch sup- 
porter of colonial New England creeds as well as of 
independence, gives us an example of God's actions in 
such a matter: " A godly woman of the church of Bos- 
ton, dwelling sometime in London, brought with her 
a parcel of very fine linen of great value, which she set 
her heart too much upon, and had been at charge to 
have it all newly washed, and curiously folded and 
pressed, and so left it in press in her parlor over night." 
Through the carelessness of a servant, the package 
caught on fire and was totally destroyed. " But it 
pleased God that the loss of this linen did her much good, 
both in taking off her heart from worldly comforts, and 
in preparing her for a far greater affliction by the untimely 
death of her husband. . . ."* 

Especially did this doctrine apply to the love of human 
beings. How often must it have grieved the Puritan 
mother to realize that she must exercise unceasing care 
lest she love her children too intensely! For the pas- 
sionate love of a mother for her babe was but a rash 
temptation to an ever- watchful and ever-jealous God to 
snatch the little one away. Preachers declared it in 
the pulpit, and writers emphasized it in their books; 

• Winthrop: Hiit. of N. E.. Vol. II, p. 36. 



24 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

the trusting and faithful woman dared not beheve 
otherwise. Once more we may turn to Winthrop for 
proof of this terrifying doctrine: 

" God will be sanctified in them that come near him. 
Two others were the children of one of the Church of 
Boston. While their parents were at the lecture, the 
boy (being about seven years of age), having a small 
staff in his hand, ran down upon the ice towards a boat 
he saw, and the ice breaking, he fell in, but his staff 
kept him up, till his sister, about fourteen years old, ran 
down to save her brother (though there were four men 
at hand, and called to her not to go, being themselves 
hasting to save him) and so drowned herself and him 
also, being past recovery ere the men could come at 
them, and could easily reach ground with their feet. 
The parents had no more sons, and confessed they had 
been too indulgent towards him, and had set their 
hearts overmuch upon him."^'' 

And again, what mother could be certain that punish- 
ment for her own petty errors might not be wreaked 
upon her innocent child? For the faith of the day did 
not demand that the sinner receive upon himself the 
recompense for his deeds; the mighty Ruler above could 
and would arbitrarily choose as the victim the offspring 
of an erring parent. Says Winthrop in the History of 
New England, mentioned above: 

" This puts me in mind of another child very strangely 
drowned a little before winter. The parents were also 
members of the church of Boston. The father had 
undertaken to maintain the mill-dam, and being at 
work upon it (with some help he had hired), in the after- 

>» Winthrop: Hist, of N. Eng., Vol. II. p. 411. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 25 

noon of the last day of the week, night came upon them 
before they had finished what they intended, and his 
conscience began to put him in mind of the Lord's day, 
and he was troubled, yet went on and wrought an hour 
within night. The next day, after evening exercise, 
and after they had supped, the mother put two children 
to bed in the room where themselves did lie, and they 
went out to visit a neighbor. When they returned, 
they continued about an hour in the room, and missed 
not the child, but then the mother going to the bed, and 
not finding her youngest child (a daughter about five 
years of age), after much search she found it drowned 
in a well in her cellar; which was very observable, as by 
a special hand of God, that the child should go out of 
that room into another in the dark, and then fall down 
at a trap-door, or go down the stairs, and so into the well 
in the farther end of the cellar, the top of the well and 
the water being even with the ground. But the father, 
freely in the open congregation, did acknowledge it the 
righteous hand of God for his profaning his holy day 
against the checks of his own conscience." 

There was a certain amount of pitiable egotism in all 
this. Seemingly God had very little to do except watch 
the Puritans. It reminds one of the two resolutions 
tradition says that some Puritan leader suggested: 
Resolved, firstly, that the saints shall inherit the earth; 
resolved, secondly, that we are the saints. A super- 
natural or divine explanation seems to have been sought 
for all events ; natural causes were too frequently ignored. 
The super-sensitive almost morbid nature resulting 
from such an attitude caused far-fetched hypotheses; 
God was in every incident and every act or accident. 



26 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

We may turn again to Winthrop's History for an illus- 
tration : 

" 1648. The synod met at Cambridge. Mr. Allen 
preached. It fell out, about the midst of his sermon, 
there came a snake into the seat where many elders sate 
behind the preacher. Divers elders shifted from it, 
but Mr. Thomson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man 
of much faith) trod upon the head of it, until it was 
killed. This being so remarkable, and nothing falhng 
out but by divine providence, it is out of doubt, the 
Lord discovered somewhat of his mind in it. The 
serpent is the devil; the synod, the representative of 
the churches of Christ in New England. The devil 
had formerly and lately attempted their disturbance 
and dissolution ; but their faith in the seed of the woman 
overcame him and crushed his head." 

There was a further behef that God in hasty anger 
often wreaked instant vengeance upon those who dis- 
pleased Him, and this doctrine doubtless kept many a 
Puritan in constant dread lest the hour of retribution 
should come upon him without warning. How often 
the mother of those days must have admonished in all 
sincerity her child not to do this or that lest God strike 
the sudden blow of death in retribution. Numerous 
indeed are the examples presented of sinners who paid 
thus abruptly the penalty for transgression. Let 
Increase Mather speak through his Essay for the Record- 
ing of Illustrious Providences: 

" The hand of God was very remarkable in that which 
came to pass in the Narragansett country in New Eng- 
land, not many weeks since; for I have good information, 
that on August 28, 1683, a man there (viz. Samuel 



Colonial Woman and Religion 27 

Wilson) having caused his dog to mischief his neighbor's 
cattle was blamed for his so doing. He denied the fact 
with imprecations, wishing that he might never stir 
from that place if he had so done. His neighbor being 
troubled at his denying the truth, reproved him, and 
told him he did very ill to deny what his conscience 
knew to be truth. The atheist thereupon used the 
name of God in his imprecations, saying, ' He wished to 
God he might never stir out of that place, if he had done 
that which he was charged with.' The words were 
scarce out of his mouth before he sunk down dead, and 
never stirred more; a son-in-law of his standing by and 
catching him as he fell to the ground." 

And if further proof of the swiftness with which God 
may act is desired. Increase Mather's Illustrious Provi- 
dences may again be cited: "A thing not unlike this 
happened (though not in New England yet) in America, 
about a year ago; for in September, 1682, a man at the 
Isle of Providence, belonging to a vessel, whereof one 
Wollery was master, being charged with some deceit in 
a matter that had been committed to him, in order to his 
own vindication, horridly wished ' that the devil might 
put out his eyes if he had done as was suspected concern- 
ing him.' That very night a rheum fell into his eyes so 
that within a few days he became stark blind. His 
company being astonished at the Divine hand which 
thus conspicuously and signally appeared, put him ashore 
at Providence, and left him there. A physician being 
desired to undertake his cure, hearing how he came to 
lose his sight, refused to meddle with him. This account 
I lately received from credible persons, who knew and 
have often seen the man whom the devil (according to 



28 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

his own wicked wish) made blind, through the dreadful 
and righteous judgment of God." 

III. Inherited Nervousness 

In all ages it would seem that woman has more readily 
accepted the teachings of her elders and has taken to 
heart more earnestly the doctrines of new religions, 
however strange or novel, than has man. It was so in 
the days of Christ; it is true in our own era of Christian 
Science, Theosophy, and New Thought. The mes- 
sage that fell from the lips of the fanatically zealous 
preachers of colonial times sank deep into the hearts of 
New England women. Its impression was sharp and 
abiding, and the sensitive mother transmitted her fears 
and dread to her child. Timid girls, inheriting a super- 
conscious realization of human defects, and hearing from 
babyhood the terrifying doctrines, grew also into a 
womanhood noticeable for over-wrought nerves and 
depressed spirits. Timid, shrinking Betty Sewall, 
daughter of Judge Sewall, was troubled all the days of 
her life with qualms about the state of her soul, was 
hysterical as a child, wretched in her mature years, and 
depressed in soul at the hour of her departure. In his 
famous diary her father makes this note about her 
when she was about five years of age: " It falls to my 
daughter Elizabeth's Share to read the 24 of Isaiah 
which she doth with many Tears not being very well, 
and the Contents of the Chapter and Sympathy with her 
draw Tears from me also." 

A writer of our own day, Alice Morse Earle, has well 
expressed our opinion when she says in her Child Life 
in Colonial Days: " The terrible verses telling of God's 



Colonial Woman and Religion 29 

judgment on the land, of fear of the pit, of the snare, of 
emptiness and waste, of destruction and desolation, 
must have sunk deep into the heart of the sick child, 
and produced the condition shown by this entry when 
she was a few years older: ' When I came in, past 7 at 
night, my wife met me in the Entry and told me Betty 
had surprised them. I was surprised with the Abrupt- 
ness of the Relation. It seems Betty Sewall had given 
some signs of dejection and sorrow; but a little while 
after dinner she burst into an amazing cry which caus'd 
all the family to cry too. Her mother ask'd the Reason, 
she gave none; at last said she was afraid she should go 
to Hell, her Sins were not pardon'd. She was first 
wounded by my reading a Sermon of Mr. Norton's; 
Text, Ye shall seek me and shall not find me. And 
these words in the Sermon, Ye shall seek me and die in 
your Sins, ran in her Mind and terrified her greatly. 
And staying at home, she read out of Mr. Cotton Mather 
— Why hath Satan filled thy Heart? which increas'd 
her Fear. Her Mother asked her whether she pray'd. 
She answered Yes, but fear'd her prayers were not heard, 
because her sins were not pardoned.' " ^^ 

We may well imagine the anguish of Betty Se wall's 
mother. And yet neither that mother, whose life had 
been gloomy enough under the same rehgion, nor the 
father who had led his child into distress by holding 
before her her sinful condition, could offer any genuine 
comfort. Miss Earle has summarised with briefness 
and force the results of such training: " A frightened 
child, a retiring girl, a vacillating sweetheart, an unwill- 
ing bride, she became the mother of eight children; but 

" Child Life in Colonial Days, p. 23S. 



30 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

always suffered from morbid introspection, and over- 
whelming fear of death and the future life, until at the 
age of thirty-five her father sadly wrote, ' God has 
delivered her now from all her fears.' " ^^ 

According to our modern conception of what child 
hfe should consist of, the existence of the Puritan girl 
must have been darkened from early infancy by such a 
creed. Only the indomitable desire of the human being 
to survive, and the capacity of the human spirit under 
the pressure of daily duties to thrust back into the sub- 
conscious mind its dread or terror, could enable man or 
woman to withstand the physical and mental strain 
of the theories hurled down so sternly and so confidently 
from the colonial pulpit. Cotton Mather in his Diary 
records this incident when his daughter was but four 
years old: "I took my little daughter Katy into my 
Study and then I told my child I am to dye Shortly and 
shee must, when I am Dead, remember Everything I 
now said unto her. I sett before her the sinful Condi- 
tion of her Nature, and I charged her to pray in Secret 
Places every Day. That God for the sake of Jesus 
Christ would give her a New Heart. I gave her to under- 
stand that when I am taken from her she must look to 
meet with more humbling Afflictions than she does now 
she has a Tender Father to provide for her." 

Infinite pity we may well have for those stern parents 
who, faithful to what they considered their duty, missed 
so much of the sanity, sweetness and joy of life, and 
thrust upon their babes, whose days should have been 
filled with love and light and play, the dread of death and 
hell and eternal damnation. It is with a touch of irony 

" Ibid. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 31 

that we read that Mather survived by thirty years this 
child whose infant mind was tortured with visions of the 
grave. Yet a strange sort of pride seems to have been 
taken in the capacity of children to imbibe such gloomy 
theological theories and in the ability to repeat, parrot- 
like, the oft-repeated doctrines of inherent sinfulness. 
One babe, two years old, was able " savingly to under- 
stand the Mysteries of Redemption "; another of the 
same age was "a dear lover of faithful ministers"; 
Anne Greenwich, who, we are not surprised to discover, 
died at the age of five, " discoursed most astonishingly 
of great mysteries "; Daniel Bradley, when three years 
old, had an " impression and inquisition of the state of 
souls after death"; Elizabeth Butcher, when only two 
and a half years old, would ask herself as she lay in her 
cradle, " What is my corrupt nature? " and would 
answer herself with the quotation, " It is empty of grace, 
bent unto sin, and only to sin, and that continually." 
With such spiritual food were our ancestors fed — some- 
times to the eternal undoing of their posterity's physical 
and mental welfare. 

IV. Woman's Day of Rest 
It is possible that the Puritan woman gained one very 
material blessing from the religion of her day; she was 
relieved of practically all work on Sunday. The colonial 
Sabbath was indeed strictly observed; there was little 
visiting, no picnicing, no heavy meals, no week-end 
parties, none of the entertainments so prevalent in our 
own day. The wife and mother was therefore spared 
the heavy tasks of Sunday so commonly expected of the 
typical twentieth-century housewife. But it is doubtful 



32 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

whether the alternative — attendance at church almost 
the entire day — would appear one whit more desirable 
to the modern woman. The Sabbath of those times 
was verily a period of religious worship. No one must 
leave town, and no one must travel to town save for the 
church service. There must be no work on the farm or 
in the city. Boats must not be used except when 
necessary to transport people to divine service. Fishing, 
hunting, and dancing were absolutely forbidden. No 
one must use a horse, ox, or wagon if the church were 
within reasonable walking distance, and '' reasonable " 
was a most expansive word. Tobacco was not to be 
smoked or chewed near any meeting house. The odor 
of cooking food on Sunday was an abomination in the 
nostrils of the Most High. And we should bear in 
mind that these rules were enforced from sunset on 
Saturday to sunset on Sunday — the twenty-four hours 
of the Puritan Sabbath. The Holy Day, as spent by 
the preacher, John Cotton, may be taken as typical of 
the strenuous hours of the Sabbath as observed by many 
a New England pastor: 

" He began the Sabbath at evening, therefore then 
performed family duty after supper, being longer than 
ordinary in exposition. After which he catechized his 
children and servants, and then returned to his study. 
The morning following, family worship being ended, he 
retired into his study until the bell called him away. 
Upon his return from meeting (where he had preached 
and prayed some hours), he returned again into his 
study (the place of his labor and prayer), unto his favorite 
devotion; where having a small repast carried him up 
for his dinner, he continued until the toUing of the bell. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 33 

The public service of the afternoon being over, he with- 
drew for a space to his pre-mentioned oratory for his 
sacred addresses to God, as in the forenoon, then came 
down, repeated the sermon in the family, prayed, after 
supper sang a Psalm, and toward bedtime betaking him- 
self again to his study he closed the day with prayer." 

To many a modern reader such a method of spending 
Sunday for either preacher or laymen would seem not 
only irksome but positively detrimental to physical and 
mental health; but we should bear in mind that the 
opportunity to sit still and listen after six days of strenu- 
ous muscular toil was probably welcomed by the colon- 
ist, and, further, that in the absence of newspapers and 
magazines and other intellectual stimuli the oratory of 
the clergy, stern as it may have been, was possibly an 
equal relief. Especially were such " recreations " wel- 
comed by the women; for their toil was as arduous as 
that of the men; while their round of life and their 
means of receiving the stimulus of public movements 
were even more restricted. 

V. Religion and Woman's Foibles 
The repressive characteristics of the creed of the hour 
were felt more keenly by those women than probably 
any man of the period ever dreamed. For woman 
seems to possess an innate love of the dainty and the 
beautiful, and beauty was the work of Satan. Nothing 
was too small or insignificant for this religion to examine 
and control. It even regulated that most difficult of all 
matters to govern — feminine dress. As Fisher says 
in his Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times: 
" At every opportunity they raised some question of 



34 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

religion and discussed it threadbare, and the more fine- 
spun and subtle it was the more it delighted them. 
Governor Winthrop's Journal is full of such questions as 
whether there could be an indwelling of the Holy Ghost 
in a believer without a personal union; whether it was 
lawful even to associate or have dealings with idolaters 
like the French; whether women should wear veils. 
On the question of veils, Roger Williams was in favor of 
them; but John Cotton one morning argued so power- 
fully on the other side that in the afternoon the women 
all came to church without them. 

" There were orders of the General Court forbidding 
* short sleeves whereby the nakedness of the arms may 
be discovered.' Women's sleeves were not to be more 
than half an ell wide. There were to be no ' immoderate 
great sleeves, immoderate . . . knots of ryban, broad 
shoulder bands and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles 
and cuffs.' The women were complained of because of 
their ' wearing borders of hair and their cutting, curling, 
and immodest laying out of their hair.' " ^^ 

Petty details that would not receive a moment's 
consideration in our own day aroused the theological 
scruples of those colonial pastors, and moved them to 
interminable arguments which nicely balanced the pros 
and cons as warranted by scripture. One of John Cot- 
ton's most famous sermons dealt with the question as to 
whether women had a right to sing in church, and after 
lengthy disquisition the preacher finally decided that the 
Lord had no special objection to women's singing the 
Psalms, but this conclusion was reached only after an 
unsparing battle of doubts and logic. " Some," he 

"Pp. 137. 185. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 35 

declares, " that were altogether against singing of Psalms 
at all with a lively voice, yet being convinced that it is 
a moral worship of God warranted in Scripture, then if 
there must be a Singing one alone must sing, not all 
(or if all) the Men only and not the Women. . . . 
Some object, ' Because it is not permitted to speak in 
the Church in two cases: 1. By way of teaching. . . . 
For this the Apostle accounteth an act of authority which 
is unlawful for a woman to usurp over the man, II, 
Tim. 2, 13. And besides the woman is more subject to 
error than a man, ver. 14, and therefore might soon prove 
a seducer if she became a teacher. ... It is not per- 
mitted to a woman to speak in the Church by way of 
propounding questions though under pretence of desire 
to learn for her own satisfaction ; but rather it is required 
she should ask her husband at home." 

Thus we might follow Cotton through many a page 
and hear his ingenious application of Biblical verses, 
his carefully balanced arguments, his earnest considera- 
tion of what seems to the modern reader a most trivial 
question. To him, however, and probably to the women 
also it was a weighty subject, more important by far 
than the cause of the high mortahty among both mothers 
and children of the day — a mortality appallingly high. 
It would seem that the fevers, sore throats, consumption, 
and small pox that destroyed women and babes in vast 
numbers might have claimed some attention from the 
hair-splitting clergyman and his congregation. We 
must not, however, judge the age too harshly. It is 
utterly impossible for us of the twentieth century to 
understand entirely the view point of the Puritans; 
for the remarkable era of the nineteenth century inter- 



36 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

venes, and freedom from superstition and blind faith 
is a gift which came after that era and not before. 

From time to time the colonists to the south may have 
sneered at or even condemned the severity of New 
England life, but in the main the merchants of New 
York and the planters of Virginia and Maryland real- 
ized and respected the moral worth and earnest nature 
of the Massachusetts settlers. For example, the versa- 
tile Virginia leader, William Byrd, remarks sarcastically 
in his History of the Dividing Line Run in the Year 1728: 
" Nor would I care, like a certain New England Magis- 
trate to order a Man to the Whipping Post for daring to 
ride for a midwife on the Lord's Day "; but in the same 
manuscript he pays these people of rigid rules the follow- 
ing tribute: " Tho' these People may be ridiculed for 
some Pharisaical Particularitys in their Worship and 
Behaviour, yet they wefe very useful Subjects, as being 
Frugal and Industrious, giving no Scandal or Bad 
Example, at least by any Open and Public Vices. By 
which excellent Qualities they had much the Advantage 
of the Southern Colony, who thought their being Mem- 
bers of the Establish't Church sufficient to Sanctifie very 
loose and Profligate Morals. For this reason New 
England improved much faster than Virginia, and in 
Seven or Eight Years New Plymouth, like Switzerland, 
seemd too narrow a Territory for its Inhabitants."^^ 

Those early New Englanders may have been frugal 
and industrious, giving no scandal nor bad example; 
but the constant repression, the monotony, the dreari- 
ness of the religion often wrought havoc with the sensi- 
tive nerves of the women, and many of them needed, 

»< Writings of Col. Byrd, Ed. Bassett, p. 25. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 37 

far more than prayers, godly counsel and church trials, 
the skilled services of a physician. Two incidents 
related by Winthrop should be sufficient to impress the 
pathos or the downright tragedy of the situation: 

" A cooper's wife of Hingham, having been long in a sad 
melancholic distemper near to phrensy, and having for- 
merly attempted to drown her child, but prevented by 
God's gracious providence, did now again take an oppor- 
tunity. . . . And threw it into the water and mud . . . 
She carried the child again, and threw it in so far as it 
could not get out; but then it pleased God, that a young 
man, coming that way, saved it. She would give no other 
reason for it, but that she did it to save it from misery, 
and with that she was assured, she had sinned against 
the Holy Ghost, and that she could not repent of any 
sin. Thus doth Satan work by the advantage of our 
infirmities, which would stir us up to cleave the more 
fast to Christ Jesus, and to walk the more humbly and 
watchfully in all our conversation." 

" Dorothy Talbye was hanged at Boston for murdering 
her own daughter a child of three years old. She had 
been a member of the church of Salem, and of good esteem 
for godhness, but, falhng at difference with her husband, 
through melancholy or spiritual delusions, she sometimes 
attempted to kill him, and her children, and herself, 
by refusing meat. . . . After much patience, and divers 
admonitions not prevailing, the church cast her out. 
Whereupon she grew worse ; so as the magistrate caused 
her to be whipped. Whereupon she was reformed for a 
time, and carried herself more dutifully to her husband, 
but soon after she was so possessed with Satan, that he 
persuaded her (by his delusions, which she Hstened to as 



38 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

revelations from God) to break the neck of her own child, 
that she might free it from future misery. This she 
confessed upon her apprehension; yet, at her arraign- 
ment, she stood mute a good space, till the governour 
told her she should be pressed to death, and then she 
confessed the indictment. When she was to receive 
judgment, she would not uncover her face, nor stand 
up, but as she was forced, nor give any testimony of her 
repentance, either then or at her execution. The cloth 
which should have covered her face, she plucked off, and 
put between the rope and her neck. She desired to have 
been beheaded, giving this reason, that it was less painful 
and less shameful. Mr. Peter, her late pastor, and Mr. 
Wilson, went with her to the place of execution, but 
could do no good with her."^^ 

VI. Wojnan^s Comfort in Religion 
Little gentleness and surely httle of the overwhelming 
love that was Christ's are apparent in a creed so stern 
and uncompromising. But the age in which it flourished 
was not in itself a gentle and tolerant era. It had not 
been so many years since men and women had been 
tortured and executed for their faith. The Spanish 
Inquisition had scarcely ceased its labor of barbarism; 
and days were to follow both in England and on the 
continent when acts almost as savage would be allowed 
for the sake of religion. In spite, moreover, of all that 
has been said above, in spite of the literalness, the belief 
in a personal devil, the fear of an arbitrary God, the 
religion of Puritanism was not without comfort to the 
New England woman. Many are the references to the 

i» Winthrop: History of New Enyland, Vol. II, pp. 79, 335. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 39 

Creator's comforting presence and help. Note these 
Hnes from a letter written by Margaret Winthrop to her 
husband in 1637: " Sure I am, that all shall work to the 
best to them that love God, or rather are loved of him. 
I know he will bring light out of obscurity, and make his 
righteousness shine forth as clear as noonday. Yet I 
find in myself an adverse spirit, and a trembling heart, 
not so willing to submit to the will of God as I desire. 
There is a time to plant, and a time to pull up that which 
is planted, which I could desire might not be yet. But 
the Lord knoweth what is best, and his will be done. . ." 
Though woman might not speak or hold office in the 
Church, yet she was not by any means denied the 
ordinary privileges and comforts of religious worship, 
but rather was encouraged to gather with her sisters in 
informal seasons of prayer and meditation. The good 
wives are commended in many of the writings of the day 
for general charity work connected with the church, 
and are mentioned frequently as being present at the 
evening assemblies similar to our modern prayer meet- 
ings. Cotton Mather makes this notation in his Essays 
to do Good, pubhshed in 1710: " It is proposed. That 
about twelve families agree to meet (the men and their 
wives) at each other's houses, in rotation, once in a fort- 
night or a month, as shall be thought most proper, and 
spend a suitable time together in religious exercises." 
Even when women ventured to hold formal religious 
meetings there was at first little or no protest. Accord- 
ing to Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, when 
Anne Hutchinson, that creator of rehgious strife and 
thorn in the side of the Elders, conducted assembhes 
for women only, there was even praise for the innova- 



40 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

tion. It was only when this leader criticised the clergy 
that silence was demanded. " Mrs. Hutchinson thought 
fit to set up a meeting for the sisters, also, where she 
repeated the sermons preached the Lord's day before, 
adding her remarks and expositions. Her lectures made 
much noise, and fifty or eighty principal women attended 
them. At first they were generally approved of." 

Only when the decency and the decorum of the colony 
were threatened did the stern laws of the church descend 
upon Mistress Hutchinson and her followers. It was 
doubtless the riotous conduct of these radicals that 
caused the resolution to be passed by the assembly in 
1637, which stated, according to Winthrop: "That 
though women might meet (some few together) to pray 
and edify one another; yet such a set assembly, (as was 
then in practice at Boston), where sixty or more did meet 
every week, and one woman (in a prophetical way, 
by resolving questions of doctrine, and expounding 
scripture) took upon her the whole exercise, was agreed 
to be disorderly, and without rule." 

Among the Quakers women's meetings were common; 
for equality of the sexes was one of their teachings. 
In the Journal of George Fox (1672) we come across this 
statement: " We had a Mens-Meeting and a Womens- 
Meeting. . . . On the First of these Days the Men and 
Women had their Meetings for Business, wherein the 
Affairs of the Church of God were taken care of." 
Moreover, what must have seemed an abomination to 
the Puritan Fathers, these Quakers allowed their wives 
and mothers to serve in official capacities in the church, 
and permitted them to take part in the quarterly busi- 
ness sessions. Thus, John Woolman in his Diary says: 



Colonial Woman and Religion 41 

" We attended the Quarterly meeting with Ann Gaunt 
and Mercy Redman." " After the quarterly meeting of 
worship ended I felt drawings to go to the Women's 
meeting of business which was very full." What was 
especially shocking to their Puritan neighbors was the 
fact that these Quakers allowed their women to go 
forth as missionary speakers, and, as in the case of Mary 
Dyer, to invade the sacred precincts of the Massachu- 
setts Bay Colony to proselyte to Quakerism. 

VII. Female Rebellion 

But those Puritan colonists had far greater troubles 
to harass them than the few quiet Quaker women who 
were moved by Inner Light to speak in the village 
streets. One of these troubles we have touched upon — 
the Rise of the Antinomians, or the disturbance caused 
by Anne Hutchinson. The other was the Salem Witch- 
craft proceedings. In both of these women were directly 
concerned, and indeed were at the root of the disturb- 
ances. Let us examine in some detail the influence 
of Puritan womanhood in these social upheavals that 
shook the foundations of church rule in New England. 

While most of the women of the Puritan colonies 
seem to have been too busy with their household duties 
and their numerous children to concern themselves 
extensively with public affairs, there was this one 
woman, Anne Hutchinson, who has gained lasting fame 
as the cause of the greatest religious and political dis- 
turbance occurring in Massachusetts before the days of 
the Revolution. Many are the references in the early 
writers to this radical leader and her followers. Some 
of the most prominent men and women in the colony 



42 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

were inclined to follow her, and for a time it appeared 
that hers was to be the real power of the day ; great was 
the excitement. Thomas Hutchinson in his History of 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, tells of her trial and banish- 
ment: " Countenanced and encouraged by Mr. Vane 
and Mr. Cotton, she advanced doctrines and opinions 
which involved the colony in disputes and contensions ; 
and being improved to civil as well as religious purposes, 
had like to have produced ruin both to church and state." 

Anne Hutchinson was the daughter of Francis Mar- 
bury, a prominent clergyman of Lincolnshire, England. 
Intensely religious as a child, she was deeply influenced 
when a young woman by the preaching of John Cotton. 
The latter, not being able to worship as he wished in 
England, moved to the Puritan colony in the New World, 
and Anne Hutchinson, upon her arrival at Boston, 
frankly confessed that she had crossed the sea solely to 
be under his preaching in his new home. 

Many of the prominent men of the community soon 
became her followers; Sir Harry Vane, Governor of the 
colony; her brother-in-law, the Rev. John Wheelwright; 
William Coddington, a magistrate of Boston; and even 
Cotton himself, leader of the church and supposedly 
orthodox of the orthodox. That this was enough to 
turn the head of any woman may well be surmised, 
especially when we remember that she was presumed to 
be the silent and weaker vessel, — to find suddenly 
learned men and even the greatest clergymen of the com- 
munity sitting at her feet and hearing her doctrines. 
It is diflScult to determine the real state of affairs con- 
cerning this woman and her teachings. Nothing, unless 
possibly the witchcraft delusion at Salem, excited the 



Colonial Woman and Religion 43 

colony as did this disturbance in both church and state. 
While much has been written, so much of partisanship 
is displayed in all the statements that it is with great 
difficulty that we are able really to separate the facts 
from jealousy and bitterness. During the first few 
months of her stay she seems to have been commended 
for her faithful attendance at church, her care of the 
sick, and her benevolent attitude toward the com- 
munity. Even her meetings for the sisters were praised 
by the pastors. But, not content with holding meetings 
for her neighbors, she criticised the preachers and their 
teachings. This was especially irritating to the good 
Elders, because woman was supposed to be the silent 
member in the household and meetinghouse, and not 
capable of offering worthy criticism. But even then the 
matter might have been passed in silence if the church 
and state had not been one, and the pastors politicians. 
Hutchinson, a kinsman of the rebellious leader, says in 
his History of Massachusetts Bay: 

" It is highly probable that if Mr. Vane had remained 
in England, or had not craftily made use of the party 
which maintained these peculiar opinions in religion, 
to bring him into civil power and authority and draw the 
affections of the people from those who were their 
leaders into the wilderness, these, like many other errors, 
might have prevailed a short time without any dis- 
turbance to the state, and as the absurdity of them 
appeared, silently subsided, and posterity would not 
have known that such a woman as Mrs. Hutchinson 
ever existed. ... It is difficult to discover, from Mr. 
Cotton's own account of his principles published ten years 
afterwards, in his answer to Bailey, wherein he differed 



44 Womari's Life in Colonial Days 

from her. . . . He seems to have been in danger when 
she was upon trial. The . . . ministers treated him 
coldly, but Mr. Winthrop, whose influence was now 
greater than ever, protected him." 

Just what were Anne Hutchinson's doctrines no one 
has ever been able to determine; even Winthrop, a 
very able, clear-headed man who was well versed in 
Puritan theology, and who was one of her most powerful 
opponents, said he was unable to define them. " The 
two capital errors with which she was charged were 
these: That the Holy Ghost dwells personally in a 
justified person; and that nothing of sanctification can 
help to evidence to believers their justification."^*' 

Her teachings were not unlike those of the Quietists 
and that of the " Inner Light," set forth by the Quakers 
— a doctrine that has always held a charm for people 
who enjoy the mystical. But it was not so much the 
doctrines probably as the fact that she and her fol- 
lowers were a disturbing element that caused her expul- 
sion from a colony where it was vital and necessary to 
the existence of the settlement that harmony should 
prevail. There had been great hardships and sacrifices; 
even yet the colony was merely a handful of people 
surrounded by thousands of active enemies. If these 
colonists were to live there must be uniformity and 
conformity. " When the Pequots threatened Massa- 
chusetts colony a few men in Boston refused to serve. 
These were Antinomians, followers of Anne Hutchinson, 
who suspected their chaplain of being under a ' Covenant 
of works,' whereas their doctrine was one should live 
under a ' Covenant of grace.' This is one of the great 

'•Hutchinson: History of Massachusetts Bay, Chapter I. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 45 

reasons why they were banished. It was the very 
life of the colony that they should have conformity, 
and all of them as one man could scarcely withstand the 
Indians. Therefore this religious doctrine was working 
rebellion and sedition, and endangering the very exis- 
tence of the state. "^'' 

Mistress Hutchinson was given a church trial, and 
after long days of discussion was banished. Her sen- 
tence as recorded stands as follows: " Mrs. Hutchinson, 
the wife of Mr. William Hutchinson, being convented 
for traducing the ministers and their ministry in the 
country, she declared voluntarily her revelation, and 
that she should be delivered, and the court ruined with 
her posterity, and thereupon was banished. "^^ The 
facts prove that she must have been a woman of shrewd- 
ness, force, personality, intelligence, and endowed with 
the ability to lead. At her trial she was certainly the 
equal of the ministers in her sharp and puzzling replies. 
The theological discussion was exciting and many were 
the fine-spun, hair-splitting doctrines brought forward 
on either side ; but to-day the mere reading of them is a 
weariness to the flesh. 

Anne Hutchinson's efforts, according to some view- 
points, may have been a failure, but they revealed in 
unmistakable manner the emotional starvation of Puri- 
tan womanhood. Women, saddened by their hardships, 
depressed by their religion, denied an open love for 
beauty, with none of the usual food for imagination or the 
common outlets for emotions, such as the modern woman 
has in her magazines, books, theatre and social func- 

" Fiske: Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. I, p. 232. 
" Hutchinson: History of Massa<:husetts Bay, Chapter I. 



46 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

tions, flocked with eagerness to hear this feminine 
radical. They seemed to reahze that their souls were 
starving for something — they may not have known 
exactly what. At first they may have gone to the 
assemblies simply because such an unusual occurrence 
offered at least a change or a diversion; but a very little 
listening seems to have convinced them that this woman 
understood the female heart far better than did John 
Cotton or any other male pastor of the settlements. 
Moreover, the theory of " inner light " or the " cove- 
nant of grace " undoubtedly appealed as something 
novel and refreshing after the prolonged soul fast under 
the harshness and intolerance of the Calvinistic creed. 
The women told their women friends of the new theories, 
and wives and mothers talked of the matter to husbands 
and fathers until gradually a great number of men 
became interested. The churches of Massachusetts 
Bay Colony were in imminent danger of losing their 
grasp upon the people and the government. It is evi- 
dent that in the home at least the Puritan woman was not 
entirely the silent, meek creature she was supposed to be; 
her opinions were not only heard by husband and father, 
but heeded with considerable respect. 

And what became of this first woman leader in 
America? Whether the fate of this woman was typical 
of what was in store for all female speakers and women 
outside their place is not stated by the elders; but they 
were firm in their belief that her death was an appro- 
priate punishment. She removed to Rhode Island and 
later to New York, where she and all her family, with the 
exception of one person, were killed by the Indians. 
As Thomas Welde says in the preface of A Short Story 



Colonial Woman and Religion 47 

of the Rise, Wane and Ruin of the Antinomians (1644) : 
" I never heard that the Indians in these parts did ever 
before commit the Hke outrage upon any one family, or 
famiUes; and therefore God's hand is the more appar- 
ently seen herein, to pick out this woful woman, to make 
her and those belonging to her an unheard of heavy 
example of their cruelty above others." 

VIII. Woman and Witchcraft 
It was at staid Boston that Anne Hutchinson mar- 
shalled her forces ; it was at peace-loving Salem that the 
Devil marshalled his witches in a last despairing on- 
slaught against the saints. To many readers there 
may seem to be little or no connection between witch- 
craft and religion; but an examination of the facts 
leading to the execution of the various martyrs to super- 
stition at Salem will convince the skeptical that there 
was a most intimate relationship between the Puritan 
creed and the theory of witchcraft. 

Looking back after the passing of more than two hun- 
dred years, we cannot but deem it strange that such an 
enlightened, educated and thoroughly intelhgent folk 
as the Puritans could have beheved in the possession of 
this mahgnant power. Especially does it appear 
incredible when we remember that here was a people 
that came to this country for the exercise of rehgious 
freedom, a citizenship that was descended from men 
trained in the universities of England, a stalwart band 
that under extreme privation had founded a college 
within sixteen years after the settlement of a wilderness. 
It must be borne in mind, however, that the Massa- 
chusetts colonies were not alone in this belief in witch- 



48 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

craft. It was common throughout the world, and was 
as aged as humanity. Deprived of the aid of modern 
science in explaining peculiar processes and happenings, 
man had long been accustomed to fall back upon devils, 
witches, and evil spirits as premises for his argum.ents. 
While the execution of the witch was not so common an 
event elsewhere in the world, during the Salem period, 
yet it was not unknown among so-called enlightened 
people. As late as 1712 a woman was burned near 
London for witchcraft, and several city clergymen were 
among the prosecutors. 

A few extracts from colonial writings should make 
clear the attitude of the Puritan leaders toward these 
unfortunates accused of being in league with the devil. 
Winthrop thus records a case in 1648: " At the court 
one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and 
found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it. The 
evidence against her was, that she was found to have 
such a mahgnant touch, as many persons, (men, women, 
and children), whom she stroked or touched with any 
affection or displeasure, etc., were taken with deafness 
... or other violent pains or sickness. . . . Some 
things which she foretold came to pass. . . . Her 
behaviour at her trial was very intemperate, lying notori- 
ously, and railing upon the jury and witnesses, etc., and 
in the like distemper she died. The same day and hour 
she was executed, there was a very great tempest at 
Connecticut, which blew down many trees, etc." ^^ 

Whether in North or in South, whether among Prot- 
estants or Catholics, this belief in witchcraft existed. 
In one of the annual letters of the " Enghsh Province 

>• History of New England, Vol. II, p. 397. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 49 

of the Society of Jesus," written in 1656, we find the 
following comment concerning the belief among emi- 
grants to Maryland: " The tempest lasted two months 
in all, whence the opinion arose, that it was not raised 
by the violence of the sea or atmosphere, but was 
occasioned by the malevolence of witches. Forthwith 
they seize a little old woman suspected of sorcery; and 
after examining her with the strictest scrutiny, guilty 
or not guilty, they slay her, suspected of this very 
heinous sin. The corpse, and whatever belonged 
to her, they cast into the sea. But the winds did not 
thus remit their violence, or the raging sea its threaten- 
ings . . ."20 

Even in Virginia, where less rigid religious authority 
existed, it was not uncommon to hear accusations of 
sorcery and witchcraft. The form of hysteria at length 
reached at Salem was the result of no sudden burst of 
terror, but of a long evolution of ideas dealing with the 
power of Satan. As early as 1638 Josselyn, a traveler 
in New England, wrote in New England's Rareiies 
Discovered: " There are none that beg in the country, 
but there be witches too many . . . that produce many 
strange apparitions if you will believe report, of a shal- 
lop at sea manned with women; of a ship and a great 
red horse standing by the main-mast, the ship being in 
a small cove to the eastward vanished of a sudden. 
Of a witch that appeared aboard of a ship twenty leagues 
to sea to a mariner who took up the carpenter's broad 
axe and cleft her head with it, the witch dying of the 
wound at home." 

The religion of Salem and Boston was well fitted for 

^"Narratives of Early Maryland, p. 141. 



50 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

developing this very theory of mahgnant power in 
" possessed " persons. The teachings that there was a 
personal devil, that God allowed him to tempt mankind, 
that there were myriads of devils under Satan's control 
at all times, ever watchful to entrap the unwary, that 
these devils were rulers over certain territory and certain 
types of people — these teachings naturally led to the 
assumption that the imps chose certain persons as their 
very own. Moreover, the constant reminders of the 
danger of straying from the strait and narrow way, and 
of the tortures of the afterworld led to self-consciousness, 
introspection, and morbidness. The idea that Satan 
was at all times seeking to undermine the Puritan church 
ialso made it easy to believe that anyone living out- 
side of, or contrary to, that church was an agent of the 
devil, in short, bewitched. As it is only the useful 
that survives, it was essential that the army of devils 
be given a work to do, and this work was evident in the 
spirit of those who dared to act and think in non-con- 
formity to the rule of the church. The devil's ways, 
too, were beyond the comprehension of man, cunning, 
smooth, sly; the most godly might fall a victim, with 
the terrible consequence that one might become 
bewitched and know it not. At this stage it was the 
bounden duty of the unfortunate being's church breth- 
ren to help him by inducing him to confess the indwelhng 
of an evil spirit and thus free himself from the great 
impostor. And if he did not confess then it were better 
that he be killed, lest the devil through him contaminate 
all. Why, says Mather, in his Wonders of the Invisible 
World: " If the devils now can strike the minds of men 
with any poisons of so fine a composition and operation, 



Colonial Woman and Religion 51 

that scores of innocent people shall unite in confessions 
of a crime which we see actually committed, it is a thing 
prodigious, beyond the wonders of the former ages, and 
it threatens no less than a sort of dissolution upon the 
world." 

To avoid or counteract this desolation was the purpose 
of the legal proceedings at Salem. It was believed by 
fairly intelligent people that Satan carried with him a 
black book in which he induced his victims to write 
their names with their own blood, signifying thereby 
that they had given their souls into his keeping, and were 
henceforth his liegemen. The rendezvous of these lost 
and damned was deep in the forest; the time of meeting, 
midnight. In such a place and at such an hour the 
assembly of witches and wizards plotted against the- 
saints of God, namely, the Puritans. According to 
Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, at the 
trial of one of these martyrs to superstition, George 
Burroughs, he was accused by eight of the confessing 
witches " as being the head actor at some of their hellish 
rendezvouzes, and one who had the promise of being a 
king in Satan's kingdom, now going to be erected. 
One of them falling into a kind of trance affirmed that 
G. B. had carried her away into a very high mountain, 
where he shewed her mighty and glorious kingdoms, and 
said, ' he would give them all to her, if she would write 
in his book.' " 

In such an era, of course, the attempt was too often 
made to explain events, not in the light of common rea- 
son, but as visitations of God to try the faith of the folk, 
or as devices of Satan to tempt them from the narrow 
path. Such an affiction as " nerves " was not readily 



52 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

acknowledged, and anyone subject to fits or nervous 
disorders, or any child irritable or tempestuous might 
easily be the victim of witchcraft. Note what Increase 
Mather has to say on the matter when explaining the 
case of the children of John Goodwin of Boston: " . . . 
In the day time they were handled with so many sorts 
of Ails, that it would require of us almost as much time 
to Relate them all, as it did of them to Endure them. 
Sometimes they would be Deaf, sometimes Dumb, and 
sometimes Blind, and often, all this at once. . . . Their 
necks would be broken, so that their Neck-bone would 
seem dissolved unto them that felt after it; and yet on 
the sudden, it would become again so stiff that there was 
no stirring of their Heads. . . ."^^ 

As we have noted in previous pages, the morbidness 
and supersensitive spiritual condition of the colonists 
brought on by the peculiar social environment had for 
many years prepared the way for just such a tragic 
attitude toward physical and mental ailments. The 
usual safety vents of modern society, the common func- 
tions we may class as general " good times," were denied 
the soul, and it turned back to feed upon itself. The 
following hint by Sewall, written a few years before the 
witchcraft craze, is significant: " Thorsday, Novr. 12. 
After the Ministers of this Town Come to the Court and 
complain against a Dancing Master, who seeks to set 
up here, and hath mixt Dances, and his time of Meeting 
is Lecture-Day; and 'tis reported he should say that by 
one Play he could teach more Divinity than Mr. Willard 
or the Old Testament. Mr. Moodey said 'twas not a 
time for N. E. to dance. Mr. Mather struck at the 

" Narratives of Witchcraft Cases, p. 102. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 53 

Root, speaking against mixt Dances. "^^ And again 
in the records by another colonist, Prince, we note: 
" 1631. March 22. First Court at Boston. Ordered 
That all who have cards, dice, or ' tables ' in their houses 
shall make way with them before the next court. "^^ 

But the lack of social safety valves seemingly did not 
suggest itself to the Puritan fathers; not the causes, but 
the religious effect of the matter was what those stern 
churchmen sought to destroy. Says Cotton Mather: 
" So horrid and helhsh is the Crime of Witchcraft, 
that were Gods Thoughts as our thoughts, or Gods 
Wayes as our wayes, it could be no other, but Unpar- 
donable. But that Grace of God may be admired, and 
that the worst of Sinners may be encouraged, Behold, 
Witchcraft also has found a Pardon. . . . From the 
Hell of Witchcraft our merciful Jesus can fetch a guilty 
Creature to the Glory of Heaven. Our Lord hath some- 
times Recovered those who have in the most horrid 
manner given themselves away to the Destroyer of their 
souls."24 

Where did this mania, this riot of superstition and 
fanaticism that resulted in so much sorrow and so many 
deaths have its beginning and origin? Coffin in his 
Old Times in the Colonies has summed up the matter 
briefly and vividly: " The saddest story in the history 
of our country is that of the witch craze at Salem, Mass., 
brought about by a negro woman and a company of girls. 
The negress, Tituba, was a slave, whom Rev. Samuel 
Parris, one of the ministers of Salem, had purchased in 
Barbadoes. We may think of Tituba as seated in the 

22 Sewall: Diary, Vol. I, p. 103. 

" Anjiah of Neiv England, Vol. I, p. 579. 

** Xarratives of Witchcraft Cases, p. 135. , 



54 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

old kitchen of Mr. Parris's house during the long winter 
evenings, telling witchcraft stories to the minister's 
niece, Elizabeth, nine years old. She draws a circle in 
the ashes on the hearth, burns a lock of hair, and mut- 
ters gibberish. They are incantations to call up the 
devil and his imps. The girls of the village gather in the 
old kitchen to hear Tituba's stories, and to mutter words 
that have no meaning. The girls are Abigail Williams, 
who is eleven; Anne Putnam, twelve; Mary Walcot 
and Mary Lewis, seventeen; Elizabeth Hubbard, Eliza- 
beth Booth, and Susannah Sheldon, eighteen; and two 
servant girls, Mary Warren, and Sarah Churchill. 
Tituba taught them to bark like dogs, mew like cats, 
grunt like hogs, to creep through chairs and under tables 
on their hands and feet, and pretend to have spasms. . . . 
Mr. Parris had read the books and pamphlets published 
in England . . . and he came to the conclusion that 
they were bewitched. He sent for Doctor Griggs who 
said that the girls were not sick, and without doubt 
were bewitched. . . . The town was on fire. Who 
bewitches you? they were asked. Sarah Good, Sarah 
Osburn, and Tituba, said the girls. Sarah Good was a 
poor, old woman, who begged her bread from door to 
door. Sarah Osburn was old, wrinkled, and sickly."^* 

The news of the peculiar actions of the girls spread 
throughout the settlement; people flocked to see their 
antics. By this time the children had carried the 
" fun " so far that they dared not confess, lest the 
punishment be terrific, and, therefore, to escape the 
consequences, they accused various old women of 
bewitching them. Undoubtedly the little ones had no 

« Page 210. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 55 

idea that the delusion would seize so jBrmly upon the 
superstitious nature of the people; but the settlers, 
especially the clergymen and the doctors, took the matter 
seriously and brought the accused to trial. The craze 
spread; neighbor accused neighbor; enemies apparently 
tried to pay old scores by the same method; and those 
who did not confess were put to death. It is a fact 
worth noting that the large majority of the witnesses 
and the greater number of the victims were women. 
The men who conducted the trials and passed the 
verdict of " guilty " cannot, of course, stand blameless; 
but it was the long pent-up but now abnormally awak- 
ened imagination of the women that wrought havoc 
through their testimony to incredible things and their 
descriptions of unbelievable actions. No doubt many 
a personal grievance, petty jealousy, ancient spite, and 
neighborhood quarrel entered into the conflict; but 
the results were out of all proportion to such causes, and 
remain to-day among the blackest and most sorrowful 
records on the pages of American history. 

As stated above, some of the testimony was incredi- 
ble and would be ridiculous if the outcome had not been 
so tragic. Let us read some bits from the records of 
those solemn trials. Increase Mather in his Remarka- 
ble Providences relates the following concerning the 
persecution of William Morse and wife at Newberry, 
Massachusetts: " On December 8, in the Morning, 
there were five great Stones and Bricks by an invisible 
hand thrown in at the west end of the house while the 
Mans Wife was making the Bed, the Bedstead was 
lifted up from the floor, and the Bedstaff flung out of the 
Window, and a Cat was hurled at her. , . . The man's 



56 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Wife going to the Cellar . . . the door shut down upon 
her, and the Table came and lay upon the door, and the 
man was forced to remove it e're his Wife could be re- 
leased from where she was."^® 

Again, see the remarkable vision beheld by Goodman 
Hortado and his wife in 1683: " The said Mary and her 
Husband going in a Cannoo over the River they saw like 
the head of a man new-shorn, and the tail of a white 
Cat about two or three foot distance from each other, 
swimming over before the Cannoo, but no body appeared 
to joyn head and tail together."^^ 

Cotton Mather in his Wonders of the Invisible World 
gives us some insight into the mental and physical condi- 
tion of many of the witnesses called upon to testify to 
the works of Satan. Some of them undoubtedly were 
far more in need of an expert on nervous diseases than 
of the ministrations of either jurist or clergyman. " It 
cost the Court a wonderful deal of Trouble, to hear the 
Testimonies of the Sufferers; for when they were going 
to give in their Depositions, they would for a long time 
be taken with fitts, that made them uncapable of say- 
ing anything. The Chief Judge asked the prisoner who 
he thought hindered these witnesses from giving their 
testimonies? and he answered. He supposed it was 
the Devil." 

It must have been a reign of terror for the Puritan 
mother and wife. What woman could tell whether she 
or her daughter might not be the next victim of the 
bloody harvest? Note the ancient records again. 
Here are the words of the colonist, Robert Calef, in his 
More Wonders of the Invisible World: " September 9. 

26 Narratives of Witchcraft Cases, p. 38. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 57 

Six more were tried, and received Sentence of Death; 
viz., Martha Cory of Salem Village, Mary Easty of 
Topsfield, Alice Parker and Ann Pudeater of Salem, 
Dorcas Hoar of Beverly, and Mary Bradberry of Salis- 
bury. September 1st, Giles Cory was prest to Death." 
And Sewall in his Diary thus speaks of the same barbar- 
ous execution just mentioned: ''Monday, Sept. 19, 
1692. About noon, at Salem, Giles Cory was press'd 
to death for standing Mute; much pains was used with 
him two days, one after another, by the Court and Capt. 
Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance, 
but all in vain."27 

Those were harsh times, and many a man or woman 
showed heroic qualities under the strain. The editor 
of Sewall's Diary makes this comment upon the silent 
heroism of the martyr, Giles Cory: " At first, apparently, 
a firm behever in the witchcraft delusion, even to the 
extent of mistrusting his saintly wife, who was executed 
three days after his torturous death, his was the most 
tragic of all the fearful offerings. He had made a will, 
while confined in Ipswich jail, conveying his property, 
according to his own preferences, among his heirs; and, 
in the belief that his will would be invalidated and his 
estate confiscated, if he were condemned by a jury after 
pleading to the indictment, he resolutely preserved 
silence, knowing that an acquittance was an impossi- 
bihty."" 

In the case of Cory doubtless the majority of the 
people thought the manner of death, like that of Anne 
Hutchinson, was a fitting judgment of God; for Sewall 
records in his ever-helpful Diary: " Sept. 20. Now I 

^^ Diary, Vol. I, p. 301. 



58 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

hear from Salem that about 18 years agoe, he [Giles 
Cory] was suspected to have stamp'd and press'd a man 
to death, but was cleared. Twas not remembered till 
Ann Putnam was told of it by said Cory's Spectre 
the Sabbath day night before the Execution. "^^ 

The Corys, Eastys, and Putnams were families 
exceedingly prominent during the entire course of the 
mania; Ann Putnam's name appears again and again. 
She evidently was a woman of unusual force and impres- 
sive personahty, and many were her revelations concern- 
ing suspected persons and even totally innocent neigh- 
bors. Such workers brought distressing results, and 
how often the helpless victims were women! Hear these 
echoes from the gloomy court rooms: " September 17: 
Nine more received Sentence of Death, viz., Margaret 
Scot of Rowly, Goodwife Reed of Marblehead, Samuel 
Wardwell, and Mary Parker of Andover, also Abigail 
Falkner of Andover . . . Rebecka Eames of Boxford, 
Mary Lacy and Ann Foster of Andover, and Abigail 
Hobbs of Topsfield. Of these Eight were Executed. "^^ 
And Cotton Mather in a letter to a friend: "Our 
Good God is working of Miracles. Five Witches were 
lately Executed, impudently demanding of God a 
Miraculous Vindication of their Innocency." ^° 

And yet how absurd was much of the testimony that 
led to such wholesale murder. We have seen some of it 
already. Note these words by a witness against Martha 
Carrier, as presented in Cotton Mather's Wonders of the 
Invisible World: " The devil carry'd them on a pole to a 
witch-meeting; but the pole broke, and she hanging 

" Diary: Vol. I. p. 364. 

" Narratives of Witchcraft Cases, p. 366. 

'0 Narratives of Witchcraft Cases, p. 215. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 59 

about Carrier's neck, they both fell down, and she then 
received an hurt by the fall whereof she was not at this 
very time recovered. . . . This rampant hag, Martha 
Carrier, was the person, of whom the confessions of the 
witches, and of her own children among the rest, agreed, 
that the devil had promised her she should be Queen 
of Hell." 

Here and there a few brave souls dared to protest 
against the outrage; but they were exceedingly few. 
Lady Phipps, wife of the governor, risked her life by 
signing a paper for the discharge of a prisoner condemned 
for witchcraft. The jailor reluctantly obeyed and 
lost his position for allowing the prisoner to go; but 
in after years the act must have been a source of genuine 
consolation to him. Only fear must have restrained the 
more thoughtful citizens from similar acts of mercy. 
Even children were imprisoned, and so cruelly treated 
that some lost their reason. In the New England 
History and General Register (XXV, 253) is found this 
pathetic note: " Dorcas Good, thus sent to prison ' as 
hale and well as other children,' lay there seven or eight 
months, and ' being chain'd in the dungeon was so 
hardly used and terrifyed' that eighteen years later her 
father alleged ' that she hath ever since been very 
chargeable, haveing little or no reason to govern her- 
self.' " 31 

How many extracts from those old writings might be 
presented to make a graphic picture of that era of 
horror and bloodshed. No one, no matter what his 
family, his manner of living, his standing in the com- 
munity, was safe. Women feared to do the least thing 

" Narratives of Witchcraft Cases, p. 159. 



60 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

unconventional; for it was an easy task to obtain wit- 
nesses, and the most paltry evidence might cause most 
unfounded charges. And the only way to escape death, 
be it remembered, was through confession. Otherwise 
the witch or wizard was still in the possession of the 
devil, and, since Satan was plotting the destruction of 
the Puritan church, anything and anybody in the power 
of Satan must be destroyed. Those who met death 
were martyrs who would not confess a lie, and such died 
as a protest against common liberty of conscience. No 
monument has been erected to their memory, but their 
names remain in the old annals as a warning against 
bigotry and fanaticism. Though some suffered the 
agonies of a horrible death, there were innumerable 
women who lived and yet probably suffered a thousand 
deaths in fear and foreboding. Hear once more the 
words of Robert Calef's ancient book. More Wonders of 
the Invisible World: " It was the latter end of February, 
1691, when divers young persons belonging to Mr. 
Parris's family, and one or more of the neighbourhood, 
began to act after a strange and unusual manner, viz., 
by getting into holes, and creeping under chairs and 
stools, and to use sundry odd postures and antick ges- 
tures, uttering foolish, ridiculous speeches. . . . The 
physicians that were called could assign no reason for 
this; but it seems one of them . . . told them he was 
afraid they were bewitched. . . . March the 11th, Mr. 
Parris invited several neighbouring ministers to join 
with him in keeping a solemn day of prayer at his own 
house. . . . Those ill affected . . . first complained 
of . . . the said Indian woman, named Tituba; she 



Colonial Woman and Religion 61 

confessed that the devil urged her to sign a book . . . 
and also to work mischief to the children, etc. 

" A child of Sarah Good's was likewise apprehended, 
being between 4 and 5 years old. The accusers said 
this child bit them, and would shew such like marks, as 
those of a small set of teeth, upon their arms. , , . 

" March 31, 1692, was set apart as a day of solemn 
humiliation at Salem ... on which day Abigail Wil- 
liams said, ' that she saw a great number of persons in 
the village at the administration of a mock sacrament, 
where they had bread as red as raw flesh, and red drink.' " 

The husband of Mrs. Gary, who afterwards escaped, 
tells this: " ' Having been there [in prison] one night, 
next morning the jailer put irons on her legs (having 
received such a command); the weight of them was 
about eight pounds : these with her other afflictions soon 
brought her into convulsion fits, so that I thought she 
would have died that night. I sent to entreat that the 
irons might be taken off; but all entreaties were in 
vain. . . ." 

" John Proctor and his wife being in prison, the sheriff 
came to his house and seized all the goods, provisions 
and cattle . . . and left nothing in the house for the 
support of the children. ..." 

" Old Jacobs being condemned, the sheriff and officers 
came and seized all he had; his wife had her wedding 
ring taken from her . . . and the neighbours in charity 
relieved her." 

" The family of the Putnams . . . were chief prosecu- 
tors in this business." 

" And now nineteen persons having been hanged, and 
one pressed to death, and eight more condemned, in ah 



62 Woman*s Life in Colonial Days 

twenty and eight . . . about fifty having confessed . . . 
above an hundred and fifty in prison, and above two 
hundred more accused; the special commission of oyer 
and terminer comes to a period. . . ." 

During the summer of 1692 the disastrous material 
and financial results of the reign of terror became so 
evident that the shrewd business sense of the colonist 
became alarmed. Harvests were ungathered, fields and 
cattle were neglected, numerous people sold their farms 
and moved southward; some did not await the sale but 
abandoned their property. The thirst for blood could 
not last, especially when it threatened commercial ruin. 
Moreover, the accusers at length aimed too high; 
accusations were made against persons of rank, members 
of the governor's family, and even the relatives of the 
pastors themselves. " The killing time lasted about 
four months, from the first of June to the end of Septem- 
ber, 1692, and then a reaction came because the inform- 
ers began to strike at important persons, and named the 
wife of the governor. Twenty persons had been put to 
death . . . and if the delusion had lasted much longer 
under the rules of evidence that were adopted everybody 
in the colony except the magistrates and ministers would 
have been either hung or would have stood charged with 
witchcraft. "^2 

The Puritan clergymen have been severely blamed for 
this strange wave of fanaticism, and no doubt, as leaders 
in the movement, they were largely responsible; but 
even their power and authority could never have caused 
such wide-spread terror, had not the women of the day 
given such active aid. The feminine soul, with its long 

« Fisher: Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times, p. 165. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 63 

pent emotions, craved excitement, and this was an 
opportunity eagerly seized upon. As Fisher says, 
" As their religion taught them to see in human nature 
only depravity and corruption, so in the outward nature 
by which they were surrounded, they saw fore warnings 
and signs of doom and dread. Where the modern mind 
now refreshes itself in New England with the beauties 
of the seashore, the forest, and the sunset, the Puritan 
saw only threatenings of terror. "^^ 

We cannot doubt in most instances the sincerity of 
these men and women, and in later days, when confes- 
sions of rash and hasty charges of action were made, 
their repentance was apparently just as sincere. Judge 
Sewall, for instance, read before the assembled congrega- 
tion his petition to God for forgiveness. " In a short 
time all the people recovered from their madness, [and] 
admitted their error. ... In 1697 the General Court 
ordered a day of fasting and prayer for what had been 
done amiss in the ' late tragedy raised among us by 
Satan.' Satan was the scapegoat, and nothing was said 
about the designs and motives of the ministers."^* Pos- 
sibly it was just as well that Satan was blamed; for the 
responsibility is thus shifted for one of the most hideous 
pages in American history. 

IX. Religion Outside of New England 

Apparently it was only under Puritanism that the 

colonial woman really suffered through the requirements 

of her religion. In other colonies there may have been 

those who felt hampered and restrained; but certainly 

" Fisher: Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times, p. 165. 
** Fisher: Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times, p. 171. 



64 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Southern provinces, 
there was no creed that made Hfe an existence of dread 
and fear. In most parts of the South the Estabhshed 
Church of England was the authorized, or popular, 
religious institution, and it would seem that the women 
who followed its teachings were as reverent and pious, 
if not so full of the fear of judgment, as their sisters to 
the North. The earliest settlers of Virginia dutifully 
observed the customs and ceremonies of the established 
church, and it was the dominant form of religion in 
Virginia and the Carolinas throughout the colonial era. 
John Smith has left the record of the first place and 
manner of divine worship in Virginia: " Wee did hang 
an awning, which is an old saile, to three or four trees 
to shadow us from the Sunne; our walls were railes of 
Wood; our seats unhewed trees till we cut plankes; 
our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees. 
In foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent; this 
came by way of adventure for new. This was our Church 
till we built a homely thing like a barne set upon Cratch- 
ets, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth ; so also was the 
walls; the best of our houses were of like curiosity. . . . 
Yet we had daily Common Prayer morning and eve- 
ning; every Sunday two sermons; and every three 
months a holy Communion till our Minister died: but 
our Prayers daily with an Homily on Sundays wee 
continued two or three years after, till more Preachers 
came." 

According to Bruce's Institutional History of Virginia 
in the Seventeenth Century, ^^ it would seem that the early 
Virginians were as strict as the New Englanders about 

33 Pages 22, 35. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 65 

the matter of church attendance and Sabbath observ- 
ance. When we come across the notation that " Sarah 
Purdy was indicted 1682 for shelhng corn on Sunday," 
we may feel rather sure that during at least the first 
eighty years of life about Jamestown Sunday must have 
been indeed a day of rest. Says Bruce: " The first 
General Assembly to meet in Virginia passed a law 
requiring of every citizen attendance at divine services 
on Sunday. The penalty imposed was a fine, if one 
failed to be present. If the delinquent was a freeman 
he was to be compelled to pay three shillings for each 
offense, to be devoted to the church, and should he be a 
slave he was to be sentenced to be whipped."'^ 

In Georgia and the Carolinas of the later eighteenth 
century the influence of Methodism — especially after 
the coming of Wesley and Whitefield — was marked, 
while the Scotch Presbyterians and the French Hugue- 
nots exercised a wholesome effect through their strict 
honesty and upright lives. Among these two latter 
sects women seem to have been very much in the back- 
ground, but among the Methodists, especially in Georgia, 
the influence of woman in the church was certainly 
noticeable. There was often in the words and deeds of 
Southern women in general a note of confident trust in 
God's love and in a joyous future life, rather lacking in 
the writings of New England. Eliza Pinckney, for 
instance, when but seventeen years old, wrote to her 
brother George a long letter of advice, containing such 
tender, yet almost exultant language as the following: 
" To be conscious we have an Almighty friend to bless 
our Endeavours, and to assist us in all Difficulties, gives 

* Imtitulional History, Vol. I, p. 29. 



66 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

rapture beyond all the boasted Enjoyments of the world, 
allowing them their utmost Extent & fulness of joy. 
Let us then, my dear Brother, set out right and keep the 
sacred page always in view. . . . God is Truth itself 
and can't reveal naturally or supernaturally contrari- 
eties."" 

There is a sweet reasonableness about this, very 
refreshing after an investigation of witches or myriads 
of devils, and, on the whole, we find much more sanity 
in the Southern relationship between religion and life 
than in the Northern. While there was some bickering 
and quarreling, especially after the arrival of Whitefield, 
yet such disputes do not seem to have left the bitterness 
and suspicion that followed in the trail of the church 
trials in Massachusetts. Indeed, various creeds must 
have lived peacefully side by side; for the colonial 
surveyor, de Brahm, speaks of nine different sects in a 
town of twelve thousand inhabitants, and makes this 
iurther comment: " Yet are (they) far from being in- 
couraged or even inclined to that disorder which is so 
common among men of contrary religious sentiments in 
other parts of the world. . . . (The) inhabitants (were) 
from the beginning renound for concord, compleasance, 
courteousness and tenderness towards each other, and 
more so towards foreigners, without regard or respect of 
nature and rehgion."^^ 

Perhaps, however, by the middle of the eighteenth 
century religious sanity had become the rule both North 
and South; for there are many evidences at that later 
period of a trust in the mercy of God and comfort in His 
authority. We find Abigail Adams, whose letters cover 

" Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 65. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 67 

the last twenty-five years of the eighteenth century, 
saying, " That we rest under the shadow of the Almighty 
is the consolation to which I resort and find that comfort 
which the world cannot give."^^ And Martha Wash- 
ington, writing to Governor Trumbull, after the death of 
her husband, says: " For myself I have only to bow with 
humble submission to the will of that God who giveth 
and who taketh away, looking forward with faith and 
hope to the moment when I shall be again united with 
the partner of my life."^^ In the hour when the long 
struggle for independence was opening, Mercy Warren 
could write in all confidence to her husband, " I somehow 
or other feel as if all these things were for the best — 
as if good would come out of evil — we may be brought 
low that our faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but 
in the protecting providence of God."^'' Among the 
Dutch of New York religion, like eating, drinking and 
other common things of life, was taken in a rather 
matter-of-fact way. Seldom indeed did these citizens 
of New Amsterdam become so excited about doctrine 
as to quarrel over it; they were too well contented with 
life as it was to contend over the life to be. Mrs. Grant 
in Memoirs of an American Lady has left us many inti- 
mate pictures of the life in the Dutch colony. She and 
her mother joined her father in New York in 1758, and 
through her residence at Claverach, Albany, and Oswego 
gained thorough knowledge of the people, their customs, 
social life and community ideas and ideals. Of their 
relation to church and creed she remarks: " Their 
religion, then, like their original national character, had 

" Letters, p. 106. 

»' Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 280. 

♦ Brown: Mercy Warren, p. 96. 



68 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

in it little of fervor or enthusiasm; their manner of 
performing religious duties regular and decent, but calm, 
and to more ardent imaginations might appear mechan- 
ical. ... If their piety, however, was without enthu- 
siasm it was also without bigotry; they wished others to 
think as they did, without showing rancor or contempt 
toward those who did not. . . . That monster in nature, 
an impious woman, was never heard of among them."*^ 

Unlike the New England clergyman, the New York 
parson was almost without power of any sort, and was 
at no time considered an authority in politics, sickness, 
witchcraft, or domestic affairs. Mrs. Grant was sur- 
prised at his lack of influence, and declared: "The 
dominees, as these people call their ministers, contented 
themselves with preaching in a sober and moderate strain 
to the people; and living quietly in the retirement of 
their families, were little heard of but in the pulpit; 
and they seemed to consider a studious privacy as one of 
their chief duties. "^^ However, it was only in New 
England and possibly in Virginia for a short time, that 
church and state were one, and this may account for 
much of the difference in the attitudes of the preachers. 
In New York the church was absolutely separate from 
the government, and unless the pastor was a man of 
exceedingly strong personality, his influence was never 
felt outside his congregation. 

In conclusion, what may we say as to the general 
status of the colonial woman in the church? Only in 
the Quaker congregation and possibly among the 
Methodists in the South did colonial womanhood suc- 

" Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 29. 
" Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 155. 



Colonial Woman and Religion 69 

cessfully assert itself, and take part in the official activi- 
ties of the institution. In the Episcopal church of 
Virginia and the Carolinas, the Catholic Church of 
Maryland and Louisiana, and the Dutch church of New 
York, women were quiet onlookers, pious, reverent, and 
meek, freely acknowledging God in their lives, content 
to be seen and not heard. In the Puritan assembly, 
likewise, they were, on the surface at least, meek, silent, 
docile; but their silence was deceiving, and, as shown 
in the witchcraft catastrophe, was but the silence of a 
smouldering volcano. In the eighteenth century, the 
womanhood of the land became more assertive, in 
rehgion as in other affairs, and there is no doubt that 
Mercy Warren, Eliza Pinckney, Abigail Adams, and 
others mentioned in these pages were thinkers whose 
opinions were respected by both clergy and laymen. The 
Puritan preacher did indeed declare against speech by 
women in the church, and demanded that if they had 
any questions, the}" should ask their husbands; but 
there came a time, and that quickly, when the voice of 
woman was heard in the blood of Salem's dead. 



CHAPTER II 
Colonial Woman and Education 

/. Feminine Ignorance 

Unfortunately when we attempt to discover just how 
thorough woman's mental training was in colonial days 
we are somewhat handicapped by the lack of accurate 
data. Here and there through the early writings we 
have only the merest hints as to what girls studied and 
as to the length of their schooling. Of course, through- 
out the world in the seventeenth century it was not 
customary to educate women in the sense that men in 
the same rank were educated. Her place was in the 
home, and as economic pressure was not generally such 
as to force her to make her own living in shop or factory 
or office, and as society would have scowled at the very 
idea, she naturally prepared only for marriage and home- 
making. Very few men of the era, even among philos- 
ophers and educational leaders, ever seemed to think 
that a woman might be a better mother through thor- 
ough mental training. And the women themselves, in 
the main, apparently were pot interested. 

The result was that there long existed an astonishingly 
large amount of illiteracy among them. Through an 
examination made for the U. S. Department of Education, 
it has been found that among women signing deeds or 
other legal documents in Massachusetts, from 1653 
to 1656, as high as fifty per cent could not write their 



Colonial Woman and Education 71 

name, and were obliged to sign by means of a cross; 
while as late as 1697 fully thirty-eight per cent were as 
illiterate. In New York fully sixty per cent of the 
Dutch women were obliged to make their mark; while 
in Virginia, where deeds signed by 3,066 women were 
examined, seventy-five per cent could not sign their 
names. If the condition was so bad among those 
prosperous enough to own property, what must it have 
been among the poor and so-called lower classes? 

We know, of course, that early in the seventeenth 
century schools attended by both boys and girls were 
established in Massachusetts, and before the Pilgrims 
landed at Plymouth there was at least one public school 
for both sexes in Virginia. But for the most part the 
girls of early New England appear to have gone to the 
" dame's school," taught by some spinster or poverty- 
stricken widow. We may again turn to Sewall's Diary 
for bits of evidence concerning the schooling in the 
seventeenth century: " Tuesday, Oct. 16, 1688. Little 
Hanah going to School in the morn, being enter' d a 
little within the Schoolhouse Lane, is rid over by David 
Lopez, fell on her back, but I hope little hurt, save that 
her Teeth bled a Little; was much frighted; but went 
to School."! "Friday, Jan. 7th, 1686-7. This day 
Dame Walker is taken so ill that she sends home my 
Daughters, not being able to teach them."^ "Wed- 
nesday, Jan. 19th, 1686-7. Mr. Stoughton and Dudley 
and Capt. Eliot and Self, go to Muddy-River to Andrew 
Gardner's, where 'tis agreed that £12 only in or as 
Money, be levyed on the people by a Rate towards 

> Vol. I, p. 231. 
'Vol. I. p. 164. 



72 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

maintaining a School to teach to write and read Eng- 
hsh."3 "Apr. 27, 1691. . . . This afternoon had 
Joseph to School to Gapt. Townsend's Mother's, his 
Cousin Jane accompanying him, carried his Horn- 
book."" 

And what did girls of Puritan days learn in the " dame 
schools "? Sewall again may enhghten us in a notation 
in his Diary for 1696: " Mary goes to Mrs. Thair's to 
learn to Read and Knit." More than one hundred years 
afterwards (1817), Abigail Adams, writing of her child- 
hood, declared: "My early education did not partake 
of the abundant opportunities which the present days 
offer, and which even our common country schools now 
afford. I never was sent to any school. I was always 
sick. Female education, in the best families went no 
farther than writing and arithmetic; in some few and 
rare instances, music and dancing."^ 

The Dutch women of New York, famous for their skill 
in housekeeping, probably did not attend school, but 
received at home what little they knew of reading, 
writing, and arithmetic. Mrs. Grant, speaking of 
opportunities for female education in New Amsterdam 
in 1709, makes it clear that the training of a girl's brain 
troubled no Hollander's head. " It was at this time 
very difficult to procure the means of instruction in 
those inland districts; female education, of consequence, 
was conducted on a very limited scale; girls learned 
needlework (in which they were indeed both skilful and 
ingenious) from their mothers and aunts; they were 
taught too at that period to read, in Dutch, the Bible, 

• Vol. I, p. 165. 

* Vol. I. p. 344. 

» Letters of Abigail Adams, p. 24. 



Colonial Woman and Education 73 

and a few Calvinist tracts of the devotional kind. But 
in the infancy of the settlement few girls read English; 
when they did, they were thought accomplished; they 
generally spoke it, however imperfectly, and few were 
taught writing. This confined education precluded 
elegance; yet, though there was no polish, there was no 
vulgarity."^ 

The words of the biographer of Catherine Schuyler 
might truthfully have been applied to almost any girl 
in or near the quaint Dutch city: " Meanwhile [about 
1740] the girl [Catherine Schuyler] was perfecting her- 
self in the arts of housekeeping, so dear to the Dutch 
matron. The care of the dairy, the poultry, the spinning, 
the baking, the brewing, the immaculate cleanliness of 
the Dutch, were not so much duties as sacred household 
rites.'' So much for womanly education in New Amster- 
dam. A thorough training in domestic science, enough 
arithmetic for keeping accurate accounts of expenses, 
and precious little reading — these were considered 
ample to set the young woman on the right path for her 
vocation as wife and mother. 

This high respect for arithmetic was by no means 
limited to New York. Ben Franklin, while in London, 
wrote thus to his daughter: " The more attentively 
dutiful and tender you are towards your good mama, 
the more you will recommend yourself to me. . . . Go 
constantl}^ to church, whoever preaches. For the rest, 
I would only recommend to you in my absence, to acquire 
those useful accomplishments, arithmetic, and book- 
keeping. This 3^ou might do with ease, if you would 

» Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 27, 
' Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 8. 



74} Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

resolve not to see company on the hours set apart for 
those studies."^ In addition, however, Franklin seems 
not to have been averse to a girl's receiving some of those 
social accomphshments which might add to her graces; 
for in 1750 he wrote his mother the following message 
about this same child: " Sally grows a fine Girl, and is 
extreamly industrious with her Needle, and delights in 
her Book. She is of a most affectionate Temper, and 
perfectly dutiful and obliging to her Parents, and to all. 
Perhaps I flatter myself too much, but I have hopes that 
she will prove an ingenious, sensible, notable, and worthy 
Woman, like her Aunt Jenny. She goes now to the 
Dancing-School. . . ."^ 

II. Woman^s Education in the South 

It is to be expected that there was much more of this 
training in social accomplishments in the South than in 
the North. Among the " first families," in Virginia 
and the Carolinas the daughters regularly received in- 
struction, not only in household duties and the supervi- 
sion of the multitude of servants, but in music, dancing, 
drawing, etiquette and such other branches as might 
help them to shine in the social life that was so abundant. 
Thomas Jefferson has left us some hints as to the educa- 
tion of aristocratic women in Virginia, in the following 
letter of advice to his daughter: 

"Dear Patsy: — With respect to the distribution of 
your time, the following is what I should approve: 

From 8 to 10, practice music. 

From 10 to 1, dance one day and draw another. 

•Smyth: Writings of Ben Franklin, Vol. Ill, p. 202. 
» Smyth: Writinui of B. Franklin, Vol. Ill, p. 4. 



Colonial Woman and Education 75 

From 1 to 2, draw on the day you dance, and write a 
letter next day. 

From 3 to 4, read French. 

From 4, to 5, exercise yourself in music. 

From 5 till bedtime, read English, write, etc. 

" Informe me what books you read, what tunes you 
learn, and inclose me your best copy of every lesson in 
drawing. . , . Take care that you never spell a word 
wrong. ... It produces great praise to a lady to spell 
well. . . ."!« 

It should be noted, of course, that this message was 
written in the later years of the eighteenth century when 
the French influence in America was far more prominent 
than during the seventeenth. Moreover, Jefferson 
himself had then been in France some time, and undoubt- 
edly was permeated with French ideas and ideals. But 
the established custom throughout the South, except in 
Louisiana, demanded that the daughters of the leading 
families receive a much more varied form of schooling 
than their sisters in most parts of the North were obtain- 
ing. While the sons of wealthy planters were frequently 
sent to English universities, the daughters were trained 
under private tutors, who themselves were often uni- 
versity graduates, and not infrequently well versed in 
languages and literatures. The advice of Philip Fithian 
to John Peck, his successor as private instructor in the 
family of a wealthy Virginian, may be enlightening as to 
the character and sincerity of these colonial teachers of 
Southern girls: 

" The last direction I shall venture to mention on this 
head, is that you abstain totally from women. What I 

'0 Ford: Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. Ill, p. 345. 



76 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

would have you understand from this, is, that by a train 
of faultless conduct in the whole course of your tutorr 
ship, you make every Lady within the Sphere of your 
acquaintance, who is between twelve and forty years of 
age, so much pleased with your person, & so satisfied as 
to your ability in the capacity of a Teacher; & in short, 
fully convinced, that, from a principle of Duty, you have 
both, by night and by day endeavoured to acquit your- 
self honourably, in the Character of a Tutor; & that 
this account, you have their free and hearty consent, 
without making any manner of demand upon you, either 
to stay longer in the Country with them, which they 
would choose, or whenever your business calls you away, 
that they may not have it in their Power either by 
charms or Justice to detain you, and when you must 
leave them, have their sincere wishes & constant prayrs 
for Length of days & much prosperity."" 

We have little or no evidence concerning the education 
of women belonging to the Southern laboring class, 
except the investigation of court papers mentioned 
above, showing the lamentable amount of illiteracy. 
In fact, so little was written by Southern women, high 
or low, of the colonial period that it is practically impos- 
sible to state anything positive about their intellectual 
training. It is a safe conjecture, however, that the 
schoohng of the average woman in the South was not 
equal to that of the average women of Massachusetts, 
but was probably fully equal to that of the Dutch women 
of New York. And yet we must not think that efforts 
in education in the southern colonies were lacking. 
As Dr. Lyon G. Tyler has said: " Under the conditions 

" Selections from Fithian't Writings, Aug. 12, 1774. 



Colonial Woman and Education 77 

of Virginia society, no developed educational system 
was possible, but it is wrong to suppose that there was 
none. The parish institutions introduced from England 
included educational beginnings; every minister had 
a school, and it was the duty of the vestry to see that all 
poor children could read and write. The county courts 
supervised the vestries, and held a yearly ' orphans 
court,' which looked after the material and educational 
welfare of all orphans. "^^ 

Indeed the interest in education during the seven- 
teenth century, in Virginia at least, seemfe to have been 
general. Repeatedly in examining wills of the period 
we may find this interest expressed and explicit direc- 
tions given for educating not only the boys, but the girls. 
Bruce in his valuable work. Institutional History of 
Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, cites a number of 
such cases in which provisions were made for the train- 
ing of daughters or other female relatives. 

" In 1657, Clement Thresh, of Rappahannock, in his 
will declared that all his estate should be responsible for 
the outlay made necessary in providing, during three 
years, instruction for his step-daughter, who, being then 
thirteen years of age, had, no doubt, already been going 
to school for some length of time. The manner of com- 
pleting her education (which, it seems, was to be pro- 
longed to her sixteenth year) was perhaps the usual one 
for girls at this period: — she was to be taught at a Mrs. 
Peacock's, very probably by Mrs. Peacock herself, 
who may have been the mistress of a small school; for 
it was ordered in the will, that if she died, the step- 
daughter was to attend the same school as Thomas 

" American Nation Series, England in America, p. 116. 



78 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Goodrich's children. "^^ " Robert Gascoigne provided 
that his wife should . . . keep their daughter Bridget 
in school, until she could both read and sew with an 
equal degree of skill. "^* " The indentures of Anne 
Andrewes, who lived in Surry . . . required her master 
to teach her, not only how to sew and * such things as 
were fitt for women to know,' but also how to read and 
apparently also how to write." ..." In 1691 a girl 
was bound out to Captain William Crafford . . . under 
indentures which required him to teach her how to spin, 
sew and read. . . ."^^ 

But, as shown in previous pages, female illiteracy in 
the South, at least during the seventeenth century, was 
surprisingly great. No doubt, in the eighteenth century, 
as the country became more thickly settled, education 
became more general, but for a long time the women 
dragged behind the men in plain reading and writing. 
Bruce declares: "There are numerous evidences that 
illiteracy prevailed to a greater extent than among 
persons of the opposite sex. . . . Among the entire 
female population of the colony, without embracing the 
slaves, only one woman of every three was able to sign 
her name in full, as compared with at least three of every 
five persons of the opposite sex,"^^ 

III. Brilliant Exceptions 
In the middle colonies, as in New England, schools for 
all classes were established at an early date. Thus, the 
first school in Pennsylvania was opened in 1683, only 

n Vol. I, p. 299. 
» Vol. I, p. 301. 
" Vol. I, p. 311. 
" Institutional History of Virginia, Vol. I, p. 454. 



Colonial Woman and Education 79 

one year • after the founding of Philadelphia, and ap- 
parently very few children in that city were without 
schooHng of some sort. As is commonly agreed, more 
emphasis was placed on education in New England than 
in any of the other colonies. A large number of the 
men who established the Northern colonies were uni- 
versity graduates, naturally interested in education, and 
the founding of Harvard, sixteen years after the landing 
at Plymouth, proves this interest. Moreover, it was 
considered essential that every man, woman, and child 
should be able to read the Bible, and for this reason, if 
for no other, general education would have been en- 
couraged. As Moses Coit Tyler has declared, " Theirs 
was a social structure with its corner stone resting on a 
book." However true this may be, we are not warranted 
in assuming that the women of the better classes in 
Massachusetts were any more thoroughly educated, 
according to the standards of the time, than the women of 
the better classes in other colonies. We do indeed find 
more New England women writing; for here lived the 
first female poet in America, and the first woman preacher, 
and thinkers of the Mercy Warren type who show in 
their diaries and letters a keen and intelligent interest 
in public affairs. 

It seems due, however, more to circumstances that 
such women as Mercy Warren and Abigail Adams wrote 
much, while their sisters to the South remained com- 
paratively silent. The husband of each of these two 
colonial dames was absent a great deal and these men 
were, therefore, the recipients of many charming letters 
now made public; while the wife of the better class 
planter in Virginia and the Carolinas had a husband who 



80 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

seldom strayed long from the plantation. Eliza Pinck- 
ney's letters rival in interest those of any American 
woman of the period, and if her husband had been a 
man as prominent in war and political affairs as John 
Adams, her letters would no doubt be considered today 
highly valuable. True, Martha Washington was in 
a position to leave many interesting written comments; 
for she was for many years close to the very center and 
origin of the most exciting events; but she was more of a 
quiet housewife than a woman who enjoyed the discus- 
sion of political events, and, besides, with a certain 
inborn reserve and reticence she took pains to destroy 
much of the private correspondence between her hus- 
band and herself. Perhaps, with the small amount of 
evidence at hand we can never say definitely in what 
particular colonies the women of the higher classes were 
most highly educated ; apparently very few of them were 
in danger of receiving an over-dose of mental stimulation. 

A few women, however, were genuinely interested in 
cultural study, and that too in subjects of an unusual 
character. Hear what Eliza Pinckney says in her 
letters : 

" I have got no further than the first volm of Virgil, 
but was most agreeably disappointed to find myself 
instructed in agriculture as well as entertained by his 
charming penn, for I am persuaded tho' he wrote for 
Italy it will in many Instances suit Carolina."^'' " If 
you will not laugh too immoderately at mee I'll Trust 
you with a Secrett. I have made two wills already! 
I know I have done no harm, for I con'd my lesson very 
perfectly, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real 

" Ravenel, Elita Pinckney, p. 50. 



Colonial Woman and Education 81 

and Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him 
and his heirs forever. . . . But after all what can I do 
if a poor Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it 
into their head that I can serve them. I can't refuse; 
butt when they are well, and able to employ a Lawyer, 
I always shall. "^^ 

And again she gives this gUmpse of another study: 
" I am a very Dunce, for I have not acquired ye writing 
shorthand yet with any degree of swiftness." That she 
had made some study of philosophy also is evident in 
this comment in a letter written after a prolonged absence 
from her plantation home for the purpose of attending 
some social function: " I began to consider what attrac- 
tion there was in this place that used so agreeably to 
soothe my pensive humour, and made me indifferent 
to everything the gay world could boast; but I found the 
change not in the place but in myself. . . . and I was 
forced to consult Mr. Locke over and over, to see wherein 
personal Identity consisted, and if I was the very same 
Selfe."i» 

Locke's philosophical theory is surely rather solid 
material, a kind indeed which probably not many col- 
lege women of the twentieth century are familiar with. 
Add to these various intellectual pursuits of hers the 
highly thorough study she made of agriculture, her 
genuinely scientific experiments in the rotation and 
selection of crops, and her practical and successful 
management of three large plantations, and we may well 
conclude that here was a colonial woman with a mind of 
her own, and a mind fit for something besides feminine 
trifles and graces. 

" Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 51. 
'• Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 49. 



82 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Jane Turell, a resident of Boston during the first half 
of the eighteenth century, was another whose interest 
in Hterature and other branches of higher education was 
certainly not common to the women of the period. Hear 
the narrative of the rather astonishing list of studies she 
undertook, and the zeal with which she pursued her 
research : 

" Before she had seen eighteen, she had read, and 
* in some measure ' digested all the English poetry and 
polite pieces in prose, printed and manuscripts, in her 
father's well furnished library. . . . She had indeed 
such a thirst after knowledge that the leisure of the 
day did not suffice, but she spent whole nights in read- 
ing. . . . 

" I find she was sometimes fired with a laudable 
ambition of raising the honor of her sex, who are there- 
fore under obligations to her; and all will be ready to 
own she had a fine genius, and is to be placed among 
those who have excelled. 

"... What greatly contributed to increase her 
knowledge, in divinity, history, physic, controversy, 
as well as poetry, was her attentive hearing most that I 
read upon those heads through the long evenings of the 
winters as we sat together."'" 

Mrs. Adams was still another example of that rare 
womanliness which could combine with practical domes- 
tic ability a taste for high intellectual pursuits. During 
the Revolutionary days in the hour of deepest anxiety 
for the welfare of her husband and of her country, she 
wrote to Mr. Adams: " I have taken a great fondness for 
reading Rollin's Ancient History since you left me. I 

»• Turell: Memoirs of Life and Death of Mrs. Jane Turell. 



Colonial Woman and Education 83 

am determined to go through with it, if possible, in 
these days of sohtude."^^ And again in a letter written 
on December 5, 1773, to Mercy Warren, she says: " I 
send with this the first volume of Moliere and should be 
glad of your opinion of the plays. I cannot be brought 
to like them. There seems to me to be a general want of 
spirit. At the close of every one, I have felt disap- 
pointed. There are no characters but what appear 
unfinished; and he seems to have ridiculed vice without 
engaging us to virtue. . . . There is one negative virtue 
of which he is possessed, I mean that of decency. . . . 
I fear I shall incur the charge of vanity by thus criticis- 
ing an author who has met with so much applause. . . . 
I should not have done it, if we had not conversed about 
it before."22 

Evidently, at least a few of those colonial dames who 
are popularly supposed to have stayed at home and 
" tended their knitting " were interested in and enthu- 
siastically conversed about some rather classic authors 
and rather deep questions. Mrs. Grant has told us of 
the aunt of General Philip Schuyler, a woman of great 
force of character and magnetic personality: " She was a 
great manager of her time and always contrived to create 
leisure hours for reading; for that kind of conversation 
which is properly styled gossiping she had the utmost 
contempt. . . . Questions in religion and morality, too 
weighty for table talk, were leisurely and coolly discussed 
[In the garden]."" 

Again, Mrs. Grant pays tribute to her mental ability 

" Letters of Abigail Adams, p. 11. 

" Letters of Abigail Adams, p. 9. 

" Grant: Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 136, 



84 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

as well as to her intelligent interest in vital questions of 
the hour, in the following statement: " She clearly 
foresaw that no mode of taxation could be invented to 
which they would easily submit; and that the defense 
of the continent from enemies and keeping the necessary 
military force to protect the weak and awe the turbulent 
would be a perpetual drain of men and money to Great 
Britain, still increasing with the increased population. "^'^ 
There were indeed brilliant minds among the women 
of colonial days; but for the most part the women of the 
period were content with a rather small amount of intel- 
lectual training and did not seek to gain that leadership 
so commonly sought by women of the twentieth cen- 
tury. Practically the only view ahead was that of the 
home and domestic life, and the whole tendency of 
education for woman was, therefore, toward the decid- 
edly practical. 

IV. Practical Education 
These brilliant women, like their sisters of less abihty, 
had no radical ideas about what they considered should 
be the fundamental principles in female education ; 
they one and all stood for sound training in domestic 
arts and home making. Abigail Adams, whose tact, 
thrift and genuine womanliness were largely responsible 
for her husband's career, expressed herself in no uncer- 
tain terms concerning the duties of woman: *' I consider 
it as an indispensable requisite that every American wife 
should herself know how to order and regulate her 
family; how to govern her domestics and train up her 
children. For this purpose the All-wise Creator made 

2* Grant: Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 267. 



Colonial Woman and Education 85 

woman an help-meet for man and she who fails in these 
duties does not answer the end of her creation. "^^ 

Indeed, it would appear that most, if not all, of the 
women of colonial days agreed with the sentiment of 
Ben Frankhn who spoke with warm praise of a printer's 
wife who, after the death of her husband, took charge of 
his business " with such success that she not only brought 
up reputably a family of children, but at the expiration 
of the term was able to purchase of me the printing house 
and establish her son in it"^^ And, according to this 
practical man, her success was due largely to the fact that 
as a native of Holland she had been taught " the knowl- 
edge of accounts." " I mention this affair chiefly for 
the sake of recommending that branch of education for 
our young females as likely to be of more use to them and 
their children in case of widowhood than either music or 
dancing, by preserving them from losses by imposition 
of crafty men, and enabling them to continue perhaps a 
profitable mercantile house with establish'd correspond- 
ence, till a son is grown up fit to undertake and go on 
with it."27 

And Mrs. Franklin, Hke her husband and Mrs. Adams, 
had no doubt of the necessity of a thorough knowledge 
of household duties for every woman who expected to 
marry. In 1757 she wrote to her sister-in-law in regard 
to the proposed marriage of her nephew: " I think Miss 
Betsey a very agreeable, sweet-tempered, good girl 
who has had a housewifely education, and will make to a 
good husband a very good wife." 

With these fundamentals in female education settled, 

" Letters of Abigail Adams, p. 401. 

» Smyth: Writings of Franklin. Vol. I. p. 344. 

"Ibid. Vol. I, p. 344. 



86 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

some of the colonists, at least, were very willing that the 
girls should learn some of the intellectual " frills " and 
fads that might add to feminine grace or possibly be of 
use in future emergencies. Franklin, for instance, 
seemed anxious that Sally should learn her French and 
music. Writing to his wife in 1758, he stated: " I 
hope Sally applies herself closely to her French and 
musick, and that I shall find she has made great Profi- 
ciency. Sally's last letter to her Brother is the best 
wrote that of late I have seen of hers. I only wish she 
was a little more careful of her spelling. I hope she 
continues to love going to Church, and would have her 
read over and over again the Whole Duty of Man and 
the Lady's Library. "^^ And again in 1772 we find him 
writing this advice to Sally after her marriage to Mr. 
Bache: " I have advis'd him to settle down to Business 
in Philadelphia where he will always be with you . . . 
and I think that in keeping a Store, if it be where you 
dwell, you can be serviceable as your mother was to me. 
For you are not deficient in Capacity and I hope are not 
too proud. . . . You might easily learn Accounts and 
you can copy Letters, or write them very well upon 
Occasion. By Industry and Frugality you may get 
forward in the World, being both of you yet young."^^ 



V. Educational Frills 

Toward the latter part of the eighteenth century that 
once-popular institution, the boarding school for girls, 
became firmly established, and many were the young 

28 Smyth: Vol. Ill, p. 431. 

29 Smyth, Vol. V. p. 345. 



Colonial Woman and Education 87 

" females " who suffered as did Oliver Wendell Holmes' 
dear old aunt: 

" They braced my aunt against a board, 

To make her straight and tall; 
They laced her up, they starved her down, 

To make her light and small; 
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair. 

They screwed it up with pins; — 
Oh, never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins." 

One of the best known of these seminaries was that 
conducted by Susanna Rowson, author of the once- 
famous novel Charlotte Temple. A letter from a colonial 
miss of fourteen years, Eliza Southgate, who attended 
this school, may be enlightening: 

" Hon. Father: 

" I am again placed at school under the tuition of an 
amiable lady, so mild, so good, no one can help loving 
her; she treats all her scholars with such tenderness as 
would win the affection of the most savage brute. I 
learn Embroiderey and Geography at present, and wish 
your permission to learn Musick. ... I have described 
one of the blessings of creation in Mrs. Rowson, and now 
I will describe Mrs. Lyman as the reverse: she is the worst 
woman I ever knew of or that I ever saw, nobody knows 
what I suffered from the treatment of that woman. "^^ 

The Moravian seminaries of Bethlehem, Pennsyl- 
vania, and of North Carolina were highly popular 
training places for girls; for in these orderly institutions 
the students were sure to gain not only instruction in 
graceful social accomplishments and a thorough knowl- 

"" Quoted in Earle's Child Life in Colonial Days, p. 113. 



88 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

edge of housekeeping, but the rare habit of doing all 
things with regularity, neatness, decorum, and quiet- 
ness. The writer of the above letter has also described 
one of these Pennsylvania schools with its prim teachers 
and commendable mingling of the practical and the 
artistic. " The first was merely a sewing school, little 
children and a pretty single spinster about 30, her white 
skirt, white short tight waistcoat, nice handkerchief 
pinned outside, a muslin apron and a close cap, of the 
most singular form you can imagine. I can't describe 
it. The hair is all put out of sight, turned back, and no 
border to the cap, very unbecoming and very singular, 
tied under the chin with a pink ribbon — blue for the 
married, white for the widows. Here was a Piano forte 
and another sister teaching a little girl music. We went 
thro' all the different school rooms, some misses of six- 
teen, their teachers were very agreeable and easy, and 
in every room was a Piano." 

It was a notable fact that dancing was taught in nearly 
all of these institutes. In spite of Puritanical training, 
in spite of the thunder-bolts of colonial preachers, the 
tide of public opinion could not be stayed, and the girls 
would learn the waltz and the prim minuet. Times had 
indeed changed since the day when Cotton Mather so 
sternly spoke his opinion on such an ungodly perform- 
ance: " Who were the Inventors of Petulant Danc- 
ings? Learned men have well observed that the Devil 
was the First Inventor of the impleaded Dances, and 
the Gentiles who worshipped him the first Practitioners 
of this Art." 

Colonial school girls may have been meek and lowly 
in the seventeenth century — the words of Winthrop 



Colonial Woman and Education 89 

and the Mathers rather indicate that they were — but 
not so in the eighteenth. Some of them showed an 
independence of spirit not at all agreeing with popular 
ideas of the demure maid of olden days. Sarah Hall, 
for instance, whose parents lived in Barbadoes, was sent 
to her grandmother. Madam Coleman of Boston, to 
attend school. She arrived with her maid in 1719 and 
soon scandalized her stately grandmother by abruptly 
leaving the house and engaging board and lodging at a 
neighboring residence. At her brother's command she 
returned; but even a brother's authority failed to control 
the spirited young lady; for a few months after the 
episode Madam Coleman wrote: " Sally won't go to 
school nor to church and wants a nue muff and a great 
many other things she don't need. I tell her fine things 
are cheaper in Barbadoes. She says she will go to 
Barbadoes in the Spring. She is well and brisk, says 
her Brother has nothing to do with her as long as her 
father is alive." The same lady informs us that Sally's 
instruction in writing cost one pound, seven shillings, 
and four pence, the entrance fee for dancing lessons, 
one pound, and the bill for dancing lessons for four 
months, two pounds. No doubt it was worth the 
price; for later Sally became rather a dashing society 
belle. 

One thing always emphasized in the training of the 
colonial girl was manners or etiquette — the art of being 
a charming hostess. As Mrs. Earle says, " It is impos- 
sible to overestimate the value these laws of etiquette, 
these conventions of custom had at a time, when neigh- 
borhood life was the whole outside world." How many, 
many a " don't " the colonial miss had dinned into her 



90 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

ears! Hear but a few of them: " Never sit down at the 
table till asked, and after the blessing. Ask for nothing; 
tarry till it be offered thee. Speak not. Bite not thy 
bread but break it. Take salt only with a clean knife. 
Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife 
upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand 
of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at 
any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied 
leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not. . . . 
Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy 
Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and 
Drinking. , . . When any speak to thee, stand up. 
Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to 
help him out if he tell it not right. Snigger not; never 
question the Truth of it." 

Girls were early taught these forms, and in addition 
received not only advice but mechanical aid to insure 
their standing erect and sitting upright. The average 
child of to-day would rebel most vigorously against such 
contrivances, and justly ;^ for in a few American schools, 
as in English institutions, young ladies were literally 
tortured through sitting in stocks, being strapped to 
back-boards, and wearing stiffened coats and stays 
re-inforced with strips of wood and metal. Such methods 
undoubtedly made the colonial dame erect and perhaps 
stately in appearance, but they contributed a certain 
artificial, thin-chested structure that the healthy girl of 
to-day would abhor. 

As we have seen, however, some women of the day 
contrived to pick up unusual bits of knowledge, or made 
surprising expeditions into the realm of literature and 
philosophy. Samuel Peters, writing in his General 



Colonial Woman and Education 91 

History of Connecticut in 1781, declared of their accom- 
plishments: " The women of Connecticut are strictly 
virtuous and to be compared to the prude rather than the 
European polite lady. They are not permitted to read 
plays; cannot converse about whist, quadrille or operas; 
but will freely talk upon the subjects of history, geog- 
raphy, and mathematics. They are great casuists and 
polemical divines; and I have known not a few of them 
so well schooled in Greek and Latin as often to put to the 
blush learned gentlemen." And yet Hannah Adams, 
writing in her Memoir in 1832, had this to say of educa- 
tional opportunities in Connecticut during the latter half 
of the eighteenth century: "My health did not even 
admit of attending school with the children in the 
neighborhood where I resided. The country schools, 
at that time, were kept but a few months in the year, and 
all that was then taught in them was reading, writing, 
and arithmetic. In the summer, the children were 
instructed by females in reading, sewing, and other kinds 
of work. The books chiefly made use of were the Bible 
and Psalter. Those who have had the advantages of 
receiving the rudiments of their education at the schools 
of the present day, can scarcely form an adequate idea of 
the contrast between them, and those of an earlier age; 
and of the great improvements which have been made 
even in the common country schools. The disadvan- 
tages of my early education I have experienced during 
life; and, among various others, the acquiring of a very 
faulty pronunciation; a habit contracted so early, that 
I cannot wholly rectify it in later years." 

North and South women complained of the lack of 
educational advantages. Madame Schuyler deplored 



92 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

the scarcity of books and of facilities for womanly educa- 
tion, and spoke with irony of the literary tastes of the 
older ladies: *' Shakespeare was a questionable author 
at the Flatts, where the plays were considered grossly 
famihar, and by no means to be compared to ' Cato ' 
which Madame Schuyler greatly admired. The ' Essay 
on Man ' was also in high esteem with this lady."^^ 
Many women of the day realized their lack of systematic 
training, and keenly regretted the absence of opportunity 
to obtain it. Abigail Adams, writing to her husband on 
the subject, says, " If you complain of education in 
sons what shall I say of daughters who every day experi- 
ence the want of it? With regard to the education of my 
own children I feel myself soon out of my depth, destitute 
in every part of education. I most sincerely wish that 
some more liberal plan might be laid and executed for the 
benefit of the rising generation and that our new Con- 
stitution may be distinguished for encouraging learning 
and virtue. If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and 
philosophers, we should have learned women. The world 
perhaps would laugh at me, but you, I know, have a 
mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard sentiment. 
If as much depends as is allowed upon the early educa- 
tion of youth and the first principles which are instilled 
take the deepest root great benefit must arise from the 
literary accompUshments in women. "^^ 

And again, Hannah Adams' Memoir of 1832 expresses 
in the following words the intellectual hunger of the 
Colonial woman: " I was very desirous of learning the 
rudiments of Latin, Greek, geography, and logic. Some 

"Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 75. 

•« Brooks: Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days, p. 199. 



Colonial Woman and Education 93 

gentlemen who boarded at my father's offered to instruct 
me in these branches of learning gratis, and I pursued 
these studies with indescribable pleasure and avidity. 
I still, however, sensibly felt the want of a more system- 
atic education, and those advantages which females 
enjoy in the present day. . . . My reading was very 
desultory, and novels engaged too much of my 
attention." 

After all, it would seem that fancy sewing was con- 
sidered far more requisite than science and literature 
in the training of American girls of the eighteenth 
century. As soon as the little maid was able to hold a 
needle she was taught to knit, and at the age of four 
or five commonly made excellent mittens and stockings. 
A girl of fourteen made in 1760 a pair of silk stockings 
with open work design and with initials knitted on the 
instep, and every stage of the work from the raising and 
winding of the silk to the designing and spinning was 
done by one so young. Girls began to make samplers 
almost before they could read their letters, and wonder- 
ful were the birds and animals and scenes depicted in 
embroidery by mere children. An advertisement of the 
day is significant of the admiration held for such a form 
of decorative work: " Martha Gazley, late from Great 
Britain, now in the city of New York Makes and Teach- 
eth the following curious Works, viz.: Artificial Fruit 
and Flowers and other Wax-works, Nuns-work, PhiUgre 
and Pencil Work upon Muslin, all sorts of Needle- Work, 
and Raising of Paste, as also to paint upon Glass, and 
Transparant for Sconces, with other Works. If any 
young Gentlewomen, or others are inclined to learn any 
or all of the above-mentioned curious Works, they may 



94 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

be carefully instructed in the same by said Martha 
Gazley." ^ 

Thus the evidence leads us to believe that a colonial 
woman's education consisted in the main of training in 
how to conduct and care for a home. It was her princi- 
pal business in life and for it she certainly was well 
prepared. In the seventeenth century girls attended 
either a short term public school or a dame's school, or, 
as among the better families in the South, were taught by 
private tutors. In the eighteenth century they fre- 
quently attended boarding schools or female seminaries, 
and here learned — at least in the middle colonies and 
the South — not only reading and writing and arithmetic, 
but dancing, music, drawing, French, and " manners." 
In Virginia and New York, as we have seen, illiteracy 
aniong seventeenth century women was astonishingly 
common; but in the eighteenth century those above the 
lowest classes in all three sections could at least read, 
write, and keep accounts, and some few had dared to 
reach out into the sphere of higher learning. That many 
realized their intellectual poverty and deplored it is 
evident; how many more who kept no diaries and left' 
no letters hungered for culture we shall never know; 
but the very longing of these colonial women is probably 
one of the main causes of that remarkable movement for 
the higher education of American women so noticeable 
in the earlier years of the nineteenth century. Their 
smothered ambition undoubtedly gave birth to an intel- 
lectual advance of women unequalled elsewhere in the 
world. 



CHAPTER III 

Colonial Woman and the Home 

7. The Charm of the Colonial Home 
After all, it is in the home that the soul of the colonial 
woman is fully revealed. We may say in all truthful- 
ness that there never was a time when the home wielded 
a greater influence than during the colonial period of 
American history. For the home was then indeed the 
center and heart of social life. There were no men's 
clubs, no women's societies, no theatres, no moving 
pictures, no suffrage meetings, none of the hundred and 
one exterior activities that now call forth both father 
and mother from the home circle. The home of pre- 
revolutionary days was far more than a place where the 
family ate and slept. Its simplicity, its confidence, its 
air of security and permanence, and its atmosphere of 
refuge or haven of rest are characteristics to be grasped 
in their true significance only through a thorough read- 
ing of the writings of those early days. The colonial 
woman had never received a diploma in domestic science 
or home economics; she had never heard of balanced 
diets; she had never been taught the arrangement of 
color schemes; but she knew the secret of making from 
four bare walls the sacred institution with all its subtle 
meanings comprehended under the one word, home. 

All home-life, of course, was not ideal. There were 
idle, slovenly women, mis-guided female fanatics, as 



96 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

there are to-day. Too often in considering the men 
and women who made colonial history we are liable to 
think that all were of the stamp of Winthrop, Brad- 
ford, Sewall, Adams, and Washington. Instead, they 
were people like the readers of this book, neither saints 
nor depraved sinners. In later chapters we shall see 
that many broke the laws of man and God, enforced 
cruel penalties on their brothers and sisters, frequently 
disobeyed the ten commandments, and balanced their 
charity with malice. Then, too, there was an ungentle, 
rough, coarse element in the under-strata of society — 
an element accentuated under the uncouth pioneer 
conditions. But, in the main, we may believe that the 
great majority of citizens of New England, the sub- 
stantial traders and merchants of the middle colonies, 
and the planters of the South, were law-abiding, God- 
fearing people who believed in the sanctity of their 
homes and cherished them. We shall see that these 
homes were well worth cherishing. 

II. Domestic Love and Confidence 
In this discussion of the colonial home, as in previous 
discussions, we must depend for information far more 
upon the writings by men than upon those by women. 
Yet, here and there, in the diaries and letters of wives 
and mothers we catch glimpses of what the institution 
meant to women — glimpses of that deep, abiding love 
and faith that have made the home a favorite theme of 
song and story. In the correspondence between hus- 
band and wife we have conclusive evidence that woman 
was held in high respect, her advice often asked, and her 
influence marked. The letters of Governor Winthrop 



Colonial Woman and the Home 97 

to his wife Margaret might be offered as striking illustra- 
tions of the confidence, sj^mpathy, and love existing in 
colonial home life. Thus, he writes from England: 
" My Dear Wife: Commend my Love to them all. 
I kisse & embrace thee, my deare wife, & all my children, 
& leave thee in His armes who is able to preserve you 
all, & to fulfill our joye in our happye meeting in His 
good time. Amen. Thy faithfull husband." And 
again just before leaving England he writes to her: 
" I must begin now to prepare thee for our long parting 
which growes very near. I know not how to deal with 
thee by arguments; for if thou wert as wise and 
patient as ever woman was, yet it must needs be a great 
trial to thee, and the greater because I am so dear to 
thee. That which I must chiefly look at in thee for thy 
ground of contentment is thy godliness." 

Nor were the wife's replies less warm and affectionate. 
Hear this bit from a letter of three centuries ago: " MY 
MOST SWEET HUSBAND: — How dearely welcome 
thy kinde letter was to me I am not able to expresse. 
The sweetnesse of it did much refresh me. What can be 
more pleasinge to a wife, than to heare of the welfayre 
of her best beloved, and how he is pleased with hir pore 
endevours. ... I wish that I may be all-wayes pleas- 
inge to thee, and that those comforts we have in each 
other may be dayly increced as far as they be pleasinge 
to God. ... I will doe any service whearein I may 
please my good Husband. I confess I cannot doe 
ynough for thee. . . ." 

Is it not evident that passionate, reverent love, 
amounting almost to adoration, was fairly common in 
those early days? Numerous other writings of the 



98 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

colonial period could add their testimony. Sometimes 
the proof is in the letters of men longing for home and 
family; sometimes in the messages of the wife longing 
for the return of her " goodman "; sometimes it is dis- 
cerned in bits of verse, such as those by Ann Bradstreet, 
or in an enthusiastic description of a woman, such as 
that by Jonathan Edwards about his future wife. Note 
the fervor of this famous eulogy by the " coldly logical " 
Edwards; can it be excelled in genuine warmth by the 
love letters of famous men in later days? 

" They say there is a young lady in New Haven who 
is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the 
world, and that there are certain seasons in which this 
Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to 
her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight and 
that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate 
on him — that she expects after a while to be received 
up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught 
up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well 
to let her remain at a distance from him always. . . . 
Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with 
the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares 
not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. 
She has a strange sweetness in her mind and singular 
purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in 
all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do 
anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the 
world, lest she offend this Great Being. She is of a 
wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevo- 
lence of mind. . . . She will sometimes go about from 
place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always 
full of joy and pleasure. . . . She loves to be alone, 



Colonial Woman and the Home 99 

walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some 
one invisible always conversing with her." 

In several poems Ann Bradstreet, daughter of Gov. 
Thomas Dudley, and wife of Simon Bradstreet, mother of 
eight children, and first of the women poets of America, 
expressed rather ardently for a Puritan dame, her love 
for her husband. Thus: 

" I crave this boon, this errand by the way: 
Commend me to the man more lov'd than Hfe, 
Show him the sorrows of his widow'd wife, 



My sobs, my longing hopes, my doubting fears, 
And, if he love, how can he there abide? 

Again, we note the following: 

" If ever two were one, then surely we; 
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; 
If ever wife was happy in a man. 
Compare with me, ye women, if you can."^ 

" I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, 
Or all the riches that the East doth hold, 
My love is such that rivers cannot quench. 
Nor aught but love from thee give recompense. 
My love is such I can no way repay ; 
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray, 
Then while we live in love let's persevere, 
That when we Uve no more we may live ever." 

The letters of Abigail Adams to her husband might be 
offered as further evidence of the affectionate relation- 
ships existing between man and wife in colonial days. 
Our text books on history so often leave the impression 
that the fear of God utterly prevented the colonial home 
from being a place of confident love; but it is possible 

' Settral Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, 1678. 



100 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

that the social restraints imposed by the church outside 
the home reacted in such a manner as to compel men 
and women to express more fervently the affections 
otherwise repressed. When we read such lines as the 
following in Mrs. Adams' correspondence, we may 
conjecture that the years of necessary separation from 
her husband during the Revolutionary days, must 
have meant as much of longing and pain as a similar 
separation would mean to a modern wife : 

" My dearest Friend: 

"... I hope soon to receive the dearest of friends, and 
the tenderest of husbands, with that unabated affection 
which has for years past, and will whilst the vital spark 
lasts, burn in the bosom of your affectionate 

A. Adams." 

" Boston, 25 October, 1777. . . . This day, dearest 
of friends, completes thirteen years since we were 
solemnly united in wedlock. Three years of this time 
we have been cruelly separated. I have patiently as I 
could, endured it, with the belief that you were serving 
your country. ..." 

" May 18, 1778. . . . Beneath my humble roof, 
blessed with the society and tenderest affection of my 
dear partner, I have enjoyed as much felicity and as 
exquisite happiness, as falls to the share of mortals. . . ."^ 

And read these snatches from the correspondence of 
James and Mercy Warren. Writing to Mercy, in 1775, 
the husband says: " I long to see you. I long to sit 
with you under our Vines & have none to make us 
afraid. ... I intend to fly Home I mean as soon as 
Prudence, Duty & Honor will permitt." Again, in 

' Letters of A. Adams, pp. 10, 89. 93. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 101 

1780, he writes: " MY DEAR MERCY: . . . When 
shall I hear from you? My affection is strong, my anxie- 
ties are many about you. You are alone. ... If you 
are not well & happy, how can I be so? "^ Her loving 
sohcitude for his welfare is equally evident in her reply 
of December 30, 1777: " Oh! these painful absences. 
Ten thousand anxieties invade my Bosom on your 
account & some times hold my lids waking many hours 
of the Cold & Lonely Night.'"' 

Those heroic days tried the soul of many a wife who 
held the home together amidst privation and anguish, 
while the husband battled for the homeland. From the 
trenches as well as from the congressional hall came 
many a letter fully as tender, if not so stately, as that 
written by George Washington after accepting the 
appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental 
Army : 

"MY DEAREST:— . . . You may believe me, 
my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn 
manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I 
have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not 
only from my unwillingness to part with you and the 
family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too 
great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real 
happiness in one month with you at home than I have 
the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay 
were to be seven times seven years. . . . My unhappi- 
ness will flow from the uneasiness you will feel from 
being left alone. "^ 

Even the calm and matter-of-fact Franklin does not 

' Brown: Mercy Warren, pp. 73, 95. 

♦Brown: Mercy Warren, p. 98. 

' Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 85. 



102 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

fail to express his affection for wife and home; for, 
writing to his close friend, Miss Ray, on March 4, 1755, 
he describes his longing in these words: " I began to 
think of and wish for home, and, as I drew nearer, I 
found the attraction stronger and stronger. My dili- 
gence and speed increased with my impatience. I drove 
on violently, and made such long stretches that a very 
few days brought me to my own house, and to the arms 
of my good old wife and children, where I remain, 
thanks to God, at present well and happy. "^ 

And sprightly Eliza Pinckney expresses her admira- 
tion for her husband with her characteristic frankness, 
when she writes: *' I am married, and the gentleman 
I have made choice of comes up to my plan in every 
title." Years later, after his death, she writes with the 
same frankness to her mother: " I was for more than 14 
years the happiest mortal upon Earth! Heaven had 
blessed me beyond the lott of Mortals & left me nothing 
to wish for. ... I had not a desire beyond him."^ 

If the letters and other writings describing home hfe 
in those old days may be accepted as true, it is not to be 
wondered at that husbands longed so intensely to rejoin 
the domestic circle. The atmosphere of the colonial 
household will be more minutely described when we 
come to consider the social life of the women of the 
times; but at this point we may well hear a few descrip- 
tions of the quaint and thoroughly lovable homes of our 
forefathers. William Byrd, the Virginia scholar, states- 
man, and wit, tells in some detail of the home of Colonel 
Spotswood, which he visited in 1732: 

« Smyth: Writings of B. Franklin. Vol. Ill, p. 245. 
' Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, pp. 93, 175. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 103 

" In the Evening the noble Colo, came home from his 
Mines, who saluted me very civily, and Mrs. Spots- 
wood's Sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him 
en Cavalier, was so kind too as to bid me welcome. 
We talkt over a Legend of old Storys, supp'd about 9 
and then prattl'd with the Ladys, til twas time for a 
Travellour to retire. In the meantime I observ'd my 
old Friend to be very Uxorious, and exceedingly fond 
of his Children. This was so opposite to the Maxims 
he us'd to preach up before he was marry'd, that I 
cou'd not forbear rubbing up the Memory of them. 
But he gave a very good-natur'd turn to his Change of 
Sentiments, by alleging that who ever brings a poor 
Gentlewoman into so solitary a place, from all her 
Friends and acquaintance, wou'd be ungrateful not to 
use her and all that belongs to her with all possible 
Tenderness. 

"... At Nine we met over a Pot of Coffee, which 
was not quite strong enough to give us the Palsy. After 
Breakfast the Colo, and I left the Ladys to their Domes- 
tick Affairs. . . . Dinner was both elegant and plenti- 
full. The afternoon was devoted to the Ladys, who 
shew'd me one of their most beautiful Walks. They 
conducted me thro' a Shady Lane to the Landing, and 
by the way made me drink some very fine Water 
that issued from a Marble Fountain, and ran inces- 
santly. Just behind it was a cover'd Bench, where 
Miss Theky often sat and bewail'd her fate as an un- 
married woman. 

" . . . In the afternoon the Ladys walkt me about 
amongst all their little Animals, with which they amuse 
themselves, and furnish the Table. . . . Our Ladys 



104 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

overslept themselves this Morning, so that we did not 
break our Fast till Ten."8 

We are so accustomed to look upon George Washing- 
ton as a godlike man of austere grandeur, that we sel- 
dom or never think of him as lover or husband. But 
see how home-like the life at Mount Vernon was, as 
described by a young Fredericksburg woman who visited 
the Washingtons one Christmas week: " I must tell you 
what a charming day I spent at Mount Vernon with 
mama and Sally. The Gen'l and Madame came home 
on Christmas Eve, and such a racket the Servants made, 
for they were glad of their coming! Three handsome 
young officers came with them. All Christmas after- 
noon people came to pay their respects and duty. 
Among them were stately dames and gay young women. 
The Gen'l seemed very happy, and Mistress Washington 
was from Daybreake making everything as agreeable as 
possible for everybody."^ 

Alexander Hamilton found life in his domestic circle 
so pleasant that he declared he resigned his seat in 
Washington's cabinet to enjoy more freely such happi- 
ness. Brooks in her Dames and Daughters of Colonial 
Days,^° gives us a pleasing picture of Mrs. Hamilton, 
" seated at the table cutting slices of bread and spread- 
ing them with butter for the younger boys, who, standing 
by her side, read in turn a chapter in the Bible or a por- 
tion of Goldsmith's Rome. When the lessons were 
finished the father and the elder children were called to 
breakfast, after which the boys were packed off to 
school." *' You cannot imagine how domestic I am 

* Bassett: Writings of Col. William Byrd, pp. 35G-358. 
'Wharton: Martha Washington, -p. 153. 
"Page 242. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 105 

becoming," Hamilton writes. " I sigh for nothing but 
the society of my wife and baby." 



III. Domestic Toil and Strain 

Despite the charm of colonial home life, however, 
the strain of that life upon womankind was far greater 
than is the strain of modern domestic duties. In New 
England this was probably more true than in the South; 
for servants were far less plentiful in the North than in 
Virginia and the Carolinas. But, on the other hand, 
the very number of the domestics in the slave colonies 
added to the duties and anxieties of the Southern woman; 
for genuine executive abihty was required in maintaining 
order and in feeding, clothing, and caring for the child- 
ish, shiftless, unthinking negroes of the plantation. 
In the South the slaves relieved the women of the 
middle and upper classes of almost all manual labor, and, 
in spite of the constant watchfulness and tact required 
of the Southern colonial dame, she possibly found 
domestic life somewhat easier than did her sister to the 
North. The dreary drudgery, the intense physical 
labor required of the colonial housewife was of such a 
nature that the woman of to-day can scarcely compre- 
hend it. Aside from the astonishing number of child- 
births and child-deaths, aside too from the natural 
privations, dangers, ravages of war, accidents and 
diseases, incident to the settlement of a new country, 
there was the constant drain upon the woman's physical 
strength through lack of those household conveniences 
which every home maker now considers mere necessities. 
It was a day of poHshed and sanded floors, and the pro- 



106 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days ^ 

verbial neatness of the colonial woman demanded that 
these be kept as bright as a mirror. Many a hundred 
miles over those floors did the colonial dame travel — 
on her knees. Then too every reputable household 
possessed its abundance of pewter or silver, and such 
ware had to be polished with painstaking regularity. 
Indeed the wealth of many a dame of those old days 
consisted mainly of silver, pewter, and linen, and her 
pride in these possessions was almost as vast as the labor 
she expended in caring for them. What a collection was 
in those old-time linen chests! Humphreys, in her 
Catherine Schuyler, copies the inventory of articles in 
one: "35 homespun Sheets, 9 Fine sheets, 12 Tow 
Sheets, 13 bolster-cases, 6 pillow-biers, 9 diaper brake- 
fast cloathes, 17 Table cloathes, 12 damask Napkins, 
27 homespun Napkins, 31 Pillow-cases, 11 dresser 
Cloathes and a damask Cupboard Cloate." And this 
too before the day of the washing-machine, the steam 
laundry, and the electric iron! The mere energy lost 
through slow hand-work in those times, if transformed 
into electrical power, would probably have run all the 
mills and factories in America previous to 1800. 

There is a decided tendency among modern house- 
wives to take a hostile view of the ever recurring task of 
preparing food for the family; but if these housewives 
were compelled suddenly to revert to the method and 
amount of cooking of colonial days, there would be uni- 
versal rebellion. Apparently indigestion was Httle 
known among the colonists — at least among the men, 
and the amount of heavy food consumed by the average 
individual is astounding to the modern reader. The 
caterer's bill for a banquet given by the corporation of 



Colonial Woman and the Home 107 

New York to Lord Cornberry may help us to realize the 
gastronomic ability of our ancestors: 

" Mayor ... Dr. 
To a piece of beef and cabbage, 
To a dish of tripe and cowheel 
To a leg of pork and turnips 
To 2 puddings 
To a surloyn of beef 
To a turkey and onions 
To a leg mutton and pickles 
To a dish chickens 
To minced pyes 
To fruit, cheese, bread, etc. 
To butter for sauce 
To dressing dinner, 
To 31 bottles wine 
To beer and syder." 

We must remember, moreover, that the greater part 
of all food consumed in a family was prepared through 
its every stage by that family. No factory-canned 
goods, no ready-to-warm soups, no evaporated fruits, 
no potted meats stood upon the grocers' shelves as a 
very present help in time of need. On the farm or 
plantation and even in the smaller towns the meat was 
raised, slaughtered, and cured at home, the wheat, oats, 
and corn grown, threshed, and frequently made into 
flour and meal by the family, the fruit dried or preserved 
by the housewife. Molasses, sugar, spices, and rum 
might be imported from the West Indies, but the every- 
day foods must come from the local neighborhood, and 
through the hard manual efforts of the consumer. An 



108 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

old farmer declared in the American Museum in 1787: 
" At this time my farm gave me and my whole family 
a good hving on the produce of it, and left me one year 
with another one hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I 
never spent more than ten dollars a year, which was for 
salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat, drink or wear 
was bought, as my farm provided all." 

The very building of a fire to cook the food was a 
laborious task with flint and steel, one generally avoided 
by never allowing the embers on the family hearth to 
die. Fire was indeed a precious gift in that day, and 
that the methods sometimes used in obtaining it were 
truly primitive, may be conjectured from the following 
extract from Prince's Annals of New England: " April 
21, 1631. The house of John Page of Waterton burnt 
by carrying a few coals from one house to another. A 
coal fell by the way and kindled the leaves. "^^ 

Over those great fire-places of colonial times many a 
wife presented herself as a burnt offering to her lord and 
master, the goodman of the house. The pots and kettles 
that ornamented the kitchen walls were implements for 
pre-historic giants rather than for frail women. The 
brass or copper kettles often holding fifteen gallons, 
and the huge iron pots weighing forty pounds, were 
lugged hither and thither by women whose every ounce 
of strength was needed for the too frequent pangs of 
child-birth. The colonists boasted of the number of 
generations a kettle would outlast; but perhaps the 
generations were too short — thanks to the size of the 
kettle. 

And yet with such cumbersome utensils, the good 

11 English Garner, Vol. II, p. 584. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 109 

wives of all the colonies prepared meals that would drive 
the modern cook to distraction. Hear these eighteenth 
century comments on Philadelphia menus: 

" This plain Friend [Miers Fisher, a young Quaker 
lawyer], with his plain but pretty wife with her Thees 
and Thous, had provided us a costly entertainment: 
ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts, creams, custards, 
jellies, fools, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter, punch, 
wine and along, etc." 

" At the home of Chief Justice Chew. About four 
o'clock we were called to dinner. Turtle and every 
other thing, flummery, jellies, sweetmeats of twenty 
sorts, trifles, whipped sillabubs, floating islands, fools, 
etc., with a dessert of fruits, raisins, almonds, pears, 
peaches. 

"A most sinful feast again! everything which could 
delight the eye or allure the taste; curds and creams, 
jellies, sweetmeats of various sorts, twenty kinds of 
tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped sillabubs, 
etc. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer."^^ 

To be a housewife in colonial days evidently required 
the strength of Hercules, the skill of Tubal Cain, and the 
patience of Job. Such an advertisement as that appear- 
ing in the Pennsylvania Packet of September 23, 1780, 
was not an exceptional challenge to female ingenuity, 
and perseverance: V 

" Wanted at a Seat about half a day's journey from 
Philadelphia, on which are good improvements and 
domestics, A single Woman of unsullied Reputation, 
an affiable, cheerful, active and amiable Disposition; 
cleanly, industrious, perfectly qualified to direct and 

'^Earle: Home Life in Colonial Days, p. 160. 



110 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

manage the female Concerns of country business, as 
raising small stock, dairying, marketing, combing, 
carding, spinning, knitting, sewing, pickling, preserving, 
etc., and occasionally to instruct two Young Ladies in 
those Branches of Oeconomy, who, with their father, 
compose the Family. Such a person will be treated with 
respect and esteem, and meet with every encouragement 
due to such a character." 

It is apparent that besides the work now commonly 
carried on in the household, colonial women performed 
many a duty now abrogated to the factory. In fact, so 
far are we removed from the industrial customs of the 
era that many of the terms then common in every home 
have lost all meaning for the average modern housewife. 
For nearly two centuries the greater part of the prepara- 
tion of material for clothing was done by the family; 
the spinning, the weaving, the dyeing, the making of 
thread, these and many similar domestic activities 
preceded the fashioning of a garment. When we remem- 
ber that the sewing machine was unknown we may com- 
prehend to some extent the immense amount of labor 
performed by women and girls of those early days. 
The possession of many slaves or servants offered but 
little if any rehef ; for such ownership involved, of course, 
the manufacture of additional clothing. Humphreys in 
her Catherine Schuyler presents this quotation comment- 
ing upon a skilled housewife: " Notwithstanding they 
have so large a family to regulate (from 50 to 60 blacks) 
Mrs. Schuyler seeth to the Manufacturing of suitable 
Cloathing for all her family, all of which is the produce 
of her plantation in which she is helped by her Mama & 
Miss Polly and the whole is done with less Combustion 



Colonial Woman and the Home 111 

& noise than in many Families who have not more than 
4 or 5 Persons in the whole Family." 

IV. Domestic Pride 

Of course the well-to-do Americans of the eighteenth 
century at length adopted the custom of importing the 
finer cloth, silk, satin and brocade; but after the middle 
of the century the anti-British sentiment impelled even 
the wealthiest either to make or to buy the coarser Ameri- 
can cloth. Indeed, it became a matter of genuine pride 
to many a patriotic dame that she could thus use the 
spinning wheel in behalf of her country. Daughters of 
Liberty, having agreed to drink no tea and to wear no 
garments of foreign make, had spinning circles similar 
to the quilting bees of later days, and it was no uncommon 
sight between 1770 and 1785 to see groups of women, 
carrying spinning wheels through the streets, going to 
such assemblies. See this bit of description of such a 
meeting held at Rowley, Massachusetts: *' A number of '^ 
thirty-three respectable ladies of the town met at sun- 
rise with their wheels to spend the day at the house of the 
Rev'd Jedekiah Jewell, in the laudable design of a 
spinning match. At an hour before sunset, the ladies 
there appearing neatly dressed, principally in homespun, 
a polite and generous repast of American production was 
set for their entertainment. . . ."^' 

If the modern woman had to labor for clothing as did 
her great-great-grandmother, styles in dress would 
become astonishingly simple. After the spinning and 
weaving, the cloth was dyed or bleached, and this in 
itself was a task to try the fortitude of a strong soul. 

"Earle: Home Life in Colonial Days, p. 183. 



112 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the impor- 
tation of silks and finer materials somewhat lessened 
this form of work; but even through the first decade of 
the nineteenth century spinning and weaving continued 
to be a part of the work of many a household. The 
Revolution, as we have seen, gave a new impetus to this 
art, and the first ladies of the land proudly exhibited 
their skill. As Wharton remarks in her Martha Wash- 
ington: " Mrs. Washington, who would not have the 
heart to starve her direst foe within her own gates, 
heartily co-operated with her husband and his colleagues. 
The spinning wheels and carding and weaving machines 
were set to work with fresh spirit at Mt. Vernon. . . . 
Some years later, in New Jersey, Mrs. Washington told 
a friend that she often kept sixteen spinning wheels in 
constant operation, and at one time Lund Washington 
spoke of a larger number. Two of her own dresses of 
cotton striped with silk Mrs. Washington showed with 
great pride, explaining that the silk stripes in the fabrics 
were made from the ravellings of brown silk stockings 
and old crimson damask chair covers. Her coachman, 
footman, and maid were all attired in domestic cloth, 
except the coachman's scarlet cuffs, which she took care 
to state had been imported before the war. . . . The 
welfare of the slaves, of whom one hundred and fifty 
had been part of her dower, their clothing, much of 
which was woven and made upon the estate, their com- 
fort, especially when ill; and their instruction in sewing, 
knitting and other housewifely arts, engaged much of 
Mrs. Washington's time and thought."^* 

» Page 71. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 113 

V. Special Domestic Tasks 

So many little necessities to which we never give a 
second thought were matters of grave concern in those 
old days. The matter, for instance, of obtaining a 
candle or a piece of soap was one requiring the closest 
attention and many an hour of drudgery. The supplying 
of the household with its winter stock of candles was a 
harsh but inevitable duty in the autumn, and the lugging 
about of immense kettles, the smell of tallow, deer suet, 
bear's grease, and stale pot-liquor, and the constant 
demands of the great fireplace must have made the candle 
season a period of terror and loathing to many a burdened 
wife and mother. Then, too, the constant care of the 
wood ashes and hunks of fat and lumps of grease for 
soap making was a duty which no rural woman dared to 
neglect. Nor must we forget that every housewife was 
something of a physician, and the gathering and drying 
of herbs, the making of ointments and salve, the dis- 
tiUing of bitters, and the boiling of syrups was then as 
much a part of housework as it is to-day a part of a 
druggist's activities. 

In a sense, however, the very nature of such work 
provided some phases of that social life which authorities 
consider so lacking in colonial existence. For those 
arduous tasks frequently required neighborly co-opera- 
tion, and social functions thus became mingled with 
industrial activities. Quilting bees, spinning bees, 
knitting bees, sewing bees, paring bees, and a dozen other • 
types of " bees " served to hghten the drudgery of such 
work and developed a spirit of neighborhness that is 
perhaps a httle lacking under modern social conditions. 



114 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

Ignoring the crude methods of labor, and the other forms 
of hardship, we may look back from the vantage point of 
two hundred years of progress and perhaps admire and 
envy something of the quietness, orderliness, and sim- 
plicity of those colonial homes. After all, however, 
doubtless many a colonial mother now and then grew 
sick at heart over the conditions and problems facing 
her. Confronted with the unsettled condition of a 
new country, with society on a most insecure founda- 
tion, with privations, hardships, and genuine toil always 
in view, and with the prospect of the terrible strain of 
bearing and rearing an inexcusable number of children, 
the wife of that era may not have been able to see all 
the romance which modern novelists have perceived in 
the days that are no more. 

VI . The Size of the Family 
And this brings us once more to what was doubtless 
the most terrific burden placed upon the colonial woman 
— the incessant bearing of offspring. In those days 
large families were not a liability, but a positive asset. 
With a vast wilderness teeming with potential wealth, 
waiting only for a supply of workers, the only economic 
pressure on the birth rate was the pressure to make it 
larger to meet the demand for laborers. Every child 
born in the colonies was assured, through moderate 
industry, of the comforts of life, and, through patience 
and shrewd investments, of some degree of wealth. 
Boys and girls meant workers — producers of wealth — 
the boys on farm or sea or in the shop, the girls in the 
home. Since their wants were simple, since the educa- 
tional demands were not large, since much of the food or 



Colonial Woman and the Home 115 

clothing was produced directly by those who used it, 
children were not unwelcome — at least to the fathers. 

Yet, who can say what rebellion unconsciously arose 
sometimes in the hearts of the women? Doubtless they 
strove to make themselves believe that all the little 
ones were a blessing and welcome — the religion of the 
day taught that any other thought was sinful — but 
still there must have been many a woman, distant from 
medical aid, living amidst new, raw environments, 
mothers already of many a child, who longed for liberty 
from the inevitable return of the trial. Women bore 
many children — and buried many. And mothers 
followed their children to the grave too often — to rest 
with them. Cotton Mather, married twice, was father of 
fifteen children; the two wives of Benjamin Frankhn's 
father bore seventeen; Roger Clap of Dorchester, 
Massachusetts, '' begat " fourteen children by one wife; 
WilHam Phipps, a governor of Massachusetts, had 
twenty-five brothers and sisters all by one mother. 
Catherine Schuyler, a woman of superior intellect, gave 
birth to fourteen children. Judge Sewall piously tells 
us in his Diary: " Jan. 6, 1701. This is the Thirteenth 
child that I have offered up to God in Baptisme; my 
wife having born me Seven Sons and Seven Daughters." 
One of the children had been born dead, and therefore 
had not received baptism. Ben Franklin often boasted 
of the strong constitution of his mother and of the fact 
that she nursed all of her own ten babes; but he does not 
tell us of the constitution of the children or of the ages 
to which they lived. Five of Se wall's children died in 
infancy, and only four lived beyond the age of thirty. 
It seems never to have occurred to the pious colonial 



116 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

fathers that it would be better to rear five to maturity 
and bury none, than to rear five and bury five. The 
strain on the womanhood of the period cannot be 
doubted; innumerable men were married twice or 
three times and no small number four times. 

Industry was the law of the day, and every child soon 
became a producer. The burdens placed upon children 
naturally lightened as the colonies progressed; but as 
late as 1775, if we may judge by the following record, not 
many moments of childhood were wasted. This is an 
account of her day's work jotted down by a young girl 
in that year: " Fix'd gown for Prude, — Mend Mother's 
Riding-hood, Spun short thread, — Fix'd two gowns 
for Welsh's girls, — Carded tow, — Spun linen, — 
Worked on Cheese-basket, — Hatchel'd flax with Han- 
nah, we did 51 lbs. apiece, — Pleated and ironed, — 
Read a Sermon of Dodridge's, — Spooled a piece — 
Milked the Cows, — Spun linen, did 50 knots, — Made a 
Broom of Guinea wheat straw, — Spun thread to whiten, 
— Set a Red dye, — Had two Scholars from Mrs. 
Taylor's, — I carded two pounds of whole wool and felt 
Nationaly, — Spun harness twine, — Scoured the pew- 
ter, — Ague in my face, — Ellen was spark'd last 
night, — spun thread to whiten — Went to Mr. Otis's 
and made them a swinging visit — Israel said I might 
ride his jade [horse] — Prude stayed at home and learned 
Eve's Dream by heart. "^^ 

VII. Indian Attacks 
The children whose comment has just been quoted 
were probably safe from all dangers except ague and 

1' Fisher: Men, Women & Manners of Col. Days, p. 275. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 117 

sparking; but in the previous century women and 
children daily faced possibilities that apparently should 
have kept them in a continuous state of fright. Time 
after time mothers and babes were stolen from the 
Indians, and the tales of their sufferings fill many an 
interesting page in the diaries, records, and letters of the 
seventeenth century and the early eighteenth. Hear 
these words from an early pamphlet, A Memorial of the 
Present Deplorable State of New England, inserted in 
Se wall's Diary: 

" The Indians came upon the House of one Adams 
at Wells, and captived the Man and his Wife, and assas- 
sinated the children. . . . The woman had Lain in 
about Eight Days. They drag'd her out, and tied her 
to a Post, until the House was rifled. They then loosed 
her, and bid her walk. She could not stir. By the help 
of a Stick she got half a step forward. She look'd up 
to God. On the sudden a new strength entered into her. 
She travelled that very Day Twenty Miles a Foot; 
She was up to the Neck in Water five times that very 
Day in passing of Rivers. At night she fell over head 
and ears, into a Slough in a Swamp, and hardly got out 
alive. . . . She is come home alive unto us." 

The following story of Mrs. Bradley of Haverly, 
Massachusetts, was sworn to as authentic: 

" She was now entered into a Second Captivity; 
but she had the great Encumbrance of being Big with 
Child, and within Six Weeks of her Time! After about 
an Hours Rest, wherein they made her put on Snow 
Shoes, which to manage, requires more than ordinary 
agility, she travelled with her Tawny Guardians all 
that night, and the next day until Ten a Clock, associated 



118 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

with one Woman more who had been brought to Bed 
but just one Week before: Here they Refreshed them- 
selves a Httle, and then travelled on till Night; when 
they had no Refreshment given them, nor had they 
any, till after their having Travelled all the Forenoon 
of the Day Ensuing. . . . She underwent incredible 
Hardships and Famine: A Mooses Hide, as tough as 
you may Suppose it, was the best and most of her Diet. 
In one and twenty days they came to their Head- 
quarters. . . . But then her Snow-Shoes were taken 
from her; and yet she must go every step above the knee 
in Snow, with such weariness that her Soul often Pray'd 
That the Lord would put an end unto her weary life! 

"... Here in the Night, she found herself ill." 
[Her child was born here]. . . . There she lay till the 
next Night, with none but the Snow under her, and the 
Heaven over her, in a misty and rainy season. She 
sent then unto a French Priest, that he would speak unto 
her Squaw Mistress, who then, without condescending 
to look upon her, allow'd her a little Birch-Rind, to cover 
her Head from the Injuries of the Weather, and a little 
bit of dried Moose, which being boiled, she drunk the 
Broth, and gave it unto the Child. 

" In a Fortnight she was called upon to Travel again, 
with her child in her Arms : every now and then, a whole 
day together without the least Morsel of any Food, and 
when she had any, she fed only on Ground-nuts and Wild- 
onions, and Lilly-roots. By the last of May, they 
arrived at Cowefick, where they planted their Corn; 
wherein she was put into a hard Task, so that the Child 
extreamly Suffered. The Salvages would sometimes 
also please themselves, with casting hot Embers into the 



Colonial Woman and the Home 119 

Mouth of the Child, which would render the Mouth so 
sore that it could not Suck for a long while together, 
so that it starv'd and Dy'd, . . . 

'' Her mistress, the squaw, kept her a Twelve-month 
with her, in a Squahd Wigwam: Where, in the following 
Winter, she fell sick of a Feavour; but in the very height 
and heat of her Paroxysms, her Mistress would compel 
her sometimes to Spend a Winters-night, which is there 
a very bitter one, abroad in all the bitter Frost and Snow 
of the Climate. She recovered; but Four Indians died 
of the Feavour, and at length her Mistress also. . . . 
She was made to pass the River on the Ice, when every 
step she took, she might have struck through it if she 
pleased. 

" . . . At last, there came to the fight of her a Priest 
from Quebeck who had known her in her former Cap- 
tivity at Naridgowock. . . . He made the Indians sell 
her to a French Family . . . where tho' she wrought 
hard, she Lived more comfortably and contented. . . . 
She was finally allowed to return to her husband. "^^ 

The account of Mary Rowlandson's captivity, long 
known to every New England family, and perhaps 
secretly read by many a boy in lieu of the present Wild 
West series, may serve as another vivid example of the 
dangers and sufferings faced by every woman who took 
unto herself a husband and went forth from the coast 
settlements to found a new home in the wilderness. 
The narrative, as written by Mrs. Rowlandson herself, 
tells of the attack by the Indians, the massacre of her 
relations, and the capture of herself and her babe: 

" There remained nothing to me but one poor, wounded 

" Sewall: Diary, Vol. I. p. 59, ff. 



120 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

babe, and it seemed at present worse than death, that it 
was in such a pitiful condition, bespeaking compassion, 
and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable things to 
revive it. . . . But now (the next morning) I must turn 
my back upon the town, and travel with them into the 
vast and desolate wilderness, I knew not whither. It is 
not my tongue or pen can express the sorrows of my 
heart, and bitterness of my spirit, that I had at this 
departure; but God was with me in a wonderful manner, 
carrying me along and bearing up my spirit that it did 
not quite fail. 

" One of the Indians carried my poor wounded babe 
upon a horse, it went moaning all along: * I shall die, I 
shall die.' I went on foot after it, with sorrow that 
cannot be expressed. At length I took it off the horse 
and carried it in my arms, till my strength failed and I 
fell down with it. Then they set me upon a horse with 
my wounded child in my lap, and there being no furni- 
ture on the horse's back, as we were going down a steep 
hill we both fell over the horse's head, at which they, 
like inhuman creatures, laughed and rejoiced to see it, 
though I thought we should there have ended our days, 
overcome with so many difficulties." 

They went farther and farther into the wilderness, 
and a few days after leaving her home, her son Joseph 
joined her, having been captured by another band of 
Indians. She tells how, having her Bible with her, she 
and her son found it a continual help, reading it and 
praying. 

" After this it quickly began to snow, and when night 
came on they stopped: and now down I must sit in the 
snow by a little fire, and a few boughs behind me, with 



Colonial Woman and the Home 121 

my sick child in my lap and calling much for water, 
(being now) through the wound fallen into a violent 
fever. My own wound also growing so stiff that I could 
scarce sit down or rise up, yet so it must be, that I must 
sit all this cold winter night, upon the cold snowy ground, 
with my sick child in my arms, looking that every hour 
would be the last of its hfe; and having no Christian 
friend near me, either to comfort or help me. 

"... Fearing the worst, I durst not send to my 
husband, though there were some thoughts of his com- 
ing to redeem and fetch me, not knowing what might 
follow. . . . 

" The Lord preserved us in safety that night, and raised 
us up again in the morning, and carried us along, that 
before noon we came to Concord. Now was I full of joy 
and yet not without sorrow: joy, to see such a lovely 
sight, so many Christians together; and some of them 
my neighbors. There I met with my brother, and 
l)rother-in-law, who asked me if I knew where his wife 
was. Poor heart! he had helped to bury her and knew 
it not; she, being shot down by the house, was partly 
burned, so that those who were at Boston . . . who came 
back afterward and buried the dead, did not know her. 
. . . Being recruited with food and rainment, we went 
to Boston that day, where I met with my dear husband; 
but the thoughts of our dear children, one being dead, 
and the other we could not tell where, abated our com- 
fort in each other. ..." 

And here is the brief story of the return of her daugh- 
ter: "She was travelling one day with the Indians, 
with her basket on her back; the company of Indians 
were got before her and gone out of sight, all except one 



122 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

squaw. She followed the squaw till night, and then 
both of them lay down, having nothing over them but the 
heavens, nor under them but the earth. Thus she 
traveled three days together, having nothing to eat or 
drink but water and green whortle-berries. At last 
they came into Providence, where she was kindly 
entertained by several of that town. . . . The Lord 
make us a blessing indeed to each other. Thus hath the 
Lord brought me and mine out of the horrible pit, and 
hath set us in the midst of tender-hearted and com^ 
passionate Christians. 'Tis the desire of my soul that 
we may v/alk worthy of the mercies received, and which 
we are receiving." 

This carrying away of white children occurred with 
surprising frequency, and we of a later generation can 
but wonder that their parents did not wreak more terrific 
vengeance upon the red man than is recorded even in the 
bloodiest pages of our early history. In 1755, after the 
close of the war with Pontiac, a meeting took place 
in the orchard of the Schuyler homestead at Albany, 
where many of such kidnapped children were returned 
to their parents and relatives. Perhaps we can compre- 
hend some of the tragedy of this form of warfare when 
we read of this gathering as described by an eye-witness : 

" Poor women who had traveled one hundred miles 
from the back settlements of Pennsylvania and New 
England appeared here with anxious looks and aching 
hearts, not knowing whether their children were alive 
or dead, or how to identify their children if they should 
meet them. . . . 

" On a gentle slope near the Fort stood a row of tem- 
porary huts built by retainers to the troops; the green 



\ 



Colonial Woman and the Home 123 

before these buildings was the scene of these pathetic 
recognitions which I did not fail to attend. The joy 
of the happy mothers was overpowering and found vent 
in tears ; but not the tears of those who after long travel 
found not what they sought. It was affecting to see the 
deep silent sorrow of the Indian women and of the 
children, who knew no other mother, and clung fondly to 
their bosems from whence they were not torn without 
bitter shrieks. I shall never forget the grotesque figures 
and wild looks of these young savages; nor the trembling 
haste with which their mothers arrayed them in the new 
clothes they had brought for them, as hoping with the 
Indian dress they would throw off their habits and 
attachments. . . ,"" 

Such dfstres^ caused by Indian raids did not, of 
course, cease with the seventeenth century. During 
the entire period of the next century the settlers on the 
western frontier lived ur^er constant dread of such 
calamities. It has been one of the chief elements in 
American history — this ceaseless expectation of war- 
fare with primitive savages. In the settlement of the 
Ohio and Mississippi valleys, in the establishment of the 
great states of the Plains, in the founding of civilization 
on the Pacific slope, even down to the twentieth century, 
the price of progress has been paid in this form of savage 
torture of women and children. Even in the long 
settled communities of the eighteenth century such 
dangers did not entirely disappear. As late as 1782, 
when an attempt was made by Burgoyne to capture 
General Schuyler, the ancient contest between mother 
and Indian warrior once more occurred. " Their guns 

" Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 123. 



124} Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

were stacked in the hall, the guards being outside and 
the relief asleep. Lest the small Philip (grandson of 
General Schuyler) be tempted to play with the guns, 
his mother had them removed. The guards rushed for 
their guns, but they were gone. The family fled up 
stairs, but Margaret, remembering the baby in the cradle 
below, ran back, seized the baby, and when she was half 
way up the flight, an Indian flung his tomahawk at her 
head, which, missing her, buried itself in the wood, 
and left its historic mark to the present time."^^ 

VIII. Parental Training 
We sometimes hear the complaint that the training of 
the modern child is left almost entirely to the mother or 
to the woman school teacher, and that as a result the 
boy is becoming effeminate. The indications are that 
this could not have been said of the colonial child; for, 
according to the records of that day, there was admirable 
co-operation between man and wife in the training of 
their little ones. Kindly Judge Sewall, who so indis- 
criminately mingled his accounts of courtships, weddings, 
funerals, visits to neighbors, notices of hangings, duties 
as a magistrate, what not, often spared time from his 
activities among the grown-ups to record such incidents 
as: " Sabbath-day, Febr. 14, 1685. Little Hull speaks 
Apple plainly in the hearing of his grand-mother and 
Eliza Jane; this the first word."^^ 

And hear what Samuel Mather in his Life of Cotton 
Mather tells of the famous divine's interest in the 
children of the household: " He began betimes to enter- 
ic Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 193. 
i» Vol. I, p. 122. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 125 

tain them with dehghtful stories, especially scriptural 
-ones; and he would ever conclude with some lesson of 
piety, giving them to learn that lesson from the story. 
. . . And thus every day at the table he used himself to 
t (11 some entertaining tale before he rose ; and endeavored 
to make it useful to the olive plants about the table. 
When his children accidentally, at any time, came in 
r his way, it was his custom to let fall some sentence or 
other that might be monitory or profitable to them. , . . 
As soon as possible he would make the children learn to 
I write; and, when they had the use of the pen, he would 
I employ them in writing out the most instructive, and 
profitable things he could invent for them. . . . The 
first chastisement which he would inflict for any ordi- 
I nary fault was to let the child see and hear him in an 
astonishment, and hardly able to believe that the child 
could do so base a thing; but believing they would never 
do it again. He would never come to give a child a 
blow excepting in case of obstinacy or something very 
criminal. To be chased for a while out of his presence 
he would make to be looked upon as the sorest punish- 
ment in his family. He would not say much to them of 
the evil angels; because he would not have them enter- 
tain any frightful fancies about the apparitions of devils. 
But yet he would briefly let them know that there are 
devils to tempt to wickedness." 

Beside this tender picture we may place one of juvehile 
warfare in the godly home of Judge Sewall, and of the 
effect such a rise of the Old Adam had upon the soul of 
the conscientious magistrate: " Nov. 6, 1692. Joseph 
threw a knob of Brass and hit his sister Betty on the 
forhead so as to make it bleed and swell, upon which, 



126 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

and for his playing at Prayer-time, and eating when 
Return Thanks, I whipd him pretty smartly. When I 
first went in (call'd by his Grandmother) he sought to 
shadow and hide himself from me behind the head of 
the Cradle: which gave me the sorrowfull remembrance 
of Adam's carriage. "^"^ 

Such turmoil was, of course, unusual in the Sewall or 
any other Puritan home; but the spiritual paroxysms 
of his daughter Betty, as noted in previous pages, were 
more characteristic, and probably not half so alarming 
to the deeply religious father. There seems to be little 
" sorrowfull remembrance " in the following note by the 
Judge; what would have caused genuine alarm to a 
modern parent seemed to be almost a source of secret 
satisfaction to him: "Sabbath, May 3, 1696. Betty 
can hardly read her chapter for weeping; tells me she is 
afraid she is gone back, does not taste that sweetness in 
reading the Word which once she did; fears that what 
was once upon her is worn off. I said what I could to 
her, and in the evening pray'd with her alone. "^^ 

Though more mention is made in the early records 
about the endeavors of the father than of the efforts of 
the mother to lead the children aright, we may, of course, 
take it for granted that the maternal care and watchful- 
ness were at least as strong as in our own day. Eliza 
Pinckney, who had read widely and studied much, did 
not consider it beneath her dignity to give her closest 
attention to the awakening intellect of her babe. " Shall 
I give you the trouble, my dear madam," she wrote to a 
friend, " to buy my son a new toy (a description of which 

»o Diary: Vol. I. p. 369. 
" Vol. I. p. 423. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 127 

I enclose) to teach him according to Mr. Locke's method 
(which I have carefully studied) to play himself into 
learning. Mr. Pinckney, himself, has been contriving 
a sett of toys to teach him his letters by the time he can 
speak. You perceive we begin betimes, for he is not yet 
four months old." Her consciousness of her responsi- 
bility toward her children is also set forth in this state- 
ment: " I am resolved to be a good Mother to my chil- 
dren, to pray for them, to set them good examples, to give 
them good advice, to be careful both in their souls and 
bodys, to watch over their tender minds, to carefully 
root out the first appearing and budings of vice, and to 
instill piety. ... To spair no paines or trouble to do 
them good. . . . And never omit to encourage every 
Virtue I may see dawning in them."'^ That her care 
brought forth good fruit is indicated when she spoke, 
years later, of her boy as " a son who has lived to near 
twenty-three years of age without once offending me." 

Here and there we thus have direct testimony as to 
the part taken by mothers in the mental and spiritual 
training of children. For instance, in New York, accord- 
ing to Mrs. Grant, such instruction was left entirely to 
the women. " Indeed, it was on the females that the 
task of rehgious instruction generally devolved; and in 
all cases where the heart is interested, whoever teaches 
at the same time learns. . . . Not only the training of 
children, but of plants, such as needed peculiar care or 
skill to rear them, was the female province."^* 

In New England, as we have seen, the parental love 
and care for the little ones was at least as much a part of 

25Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 17. 

2' Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 29. 



128 Womari's Life in Colonial Days 

the father's domestic activities as of the mother's; 
unfortunately the men were in the majority as writers, 
and they generally wrote of what they themselves did 
for their children. Abigail Adams was one of the excep- 
tional women, and her letters have many a reference to 
the training of her famous son. Writing to him while he 
was with his father in Europe in 1778, she said: " My 
dear Son. . . . Let me enjoin it upon you to attend con- 
stantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions 
of your father, as you value the happiness of your mother 
and your own welfare. His care and attention to you 
render many things unnecessary for me to write . . . 
but the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require 
line upon line and precept upon precept, and, when 
enforced by the joint efforts of both parents, will, I 
hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for, dear 
as you are to me, I would much rather you should have 
found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that 
an untimely death crop you in your infant years, than 
see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child. . . ."^* 
Such quotations should prove that home life in colonial 
days was no one-sided affair. The father and the mother 
were on a par in matters of child training, and the 
influence of both entered into that strong race of men 
who, through long years of struggle and warfare, wrested 
civilization from savagery, and a new nation from an old 
one. What a modern writer has written about Mrs. 
Adams might possibly be applicable to many a colonial 
mother who kept no record of her daily effort to lead 
her children in the path of righteousness and noble 
service: *' Mrs. Adams's influence on her children was 

21 Letl&rs, p. 93. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 129 

strong, inspiring, vital. Something of the Spartan 
mother's spirit breathed in her. She taught her sons 
and daughter to be brave and patient, in spite of danger 
and privation. She made them feel no terror at the 
thought of death or hardships suffered for one's country. 
She read and talked to them of the world's history. . . . 
Every night, when the Lord's prayer had been repeated, 
she heard him [John Quincey] say that ode of Collins 
beginning, 

' How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blest.' "^ 

IX. Tributes to Colonial Mothers 
With such wives and mothers so common in the New 
World, it is but natural that many a high tribute to them 
should be found in the old records. Not for any particu- 
lar or exactly named trait are these women praised, but 
rather for that general, indescribable quality of woman- 
liness — that quality which men have ever praised and 
ever will praise. Those noble words of Judge Sewall 
at the open grave of his mother are an epitome of the 
patience, the love, the sacrifice, and the nobility of 
motherhood: " Jany. 4th, 1700-1. . . . Nathan Bricket 
taking in hand to fill the grave, I said. Forbear a little, 
and suffer me to say that amidst our bereaving sorrows 
we have the comfort of beholding this saint put into the 
rightful possession of that happiness of living desir'd 
and dying lamented. She liv'd commendably four and 
fifty years with her dear husband, and my dear father: 
and she could not well brook the being divided from him 
at her death; which is the cause of our taking leave of 

25 Brooks: Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days, p. 197. 



130 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

her in this place. She was a true and constant lover of 
God's Word, worship and saints: and she always with a 
patient cheerfulness, submitted to the divine decree of 
providing bread for her self and others in the sweat of 
her brows. And now . . . my honored and beloved 
Friends and Neighbors! My dear mother never thought 
much of doing the most frequent and homely offices of 
love for me: and lavished away many thousands of 
words upon me, before I could return one word in answer: 
And therefore I ask and hope that none will be offended 
that I have now ventured to speak one word in her 
behalf; when she herself has now become speechless. "^^ 

How many are the tributes to those " mothers in 
Israel"! Hear this unusual one to Jane Turell: "As 
a wife she was dutiful, prudent and diligent, not only 
content but joyful in her circumstances. She submitted 
as is fit in the Lord, looked well to the ways of her 
household. . . . She respected all her friends and 
relatives, and spake of them with honor, and never for- 
got either their counsels or their kindnesses. ... I 
may not forget to mention the strong and constant guard 
she placed on the door of her lips. Whoever heard her 
call an ill name? or detract from anybody? "^^ 

And, again, note the tone of this message to Alexan- 
der Hamilton from his father-in-law. General Philip 
Schuyler, after the death of Mrs. Schuyler: " My trial 
has been severe. . . . But after giving and receiving for 
nearly half a century a series of mutual evidences of 
affection and friendship which increased as we advanced 
in life, the shock was great and sensibly felt, to be thus 

a> Sewall: Diary, Vol. II, p. 31. 

*' Ebenezer Turell in Memoirs of the Life and Death of Mrs. Jane Turell. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 131 

suddenly deprived of a beloved wife, the mother of my 
children, and the soothing companion of my declining 
years." 

The words of President Dirkland of Harvard upon the 
death of Mrs. Adams, show how deeply women had come 
to influence the life of New England by the time of the 
Revolution. His address was a sincere tribute not only 
to this remarkable mother but to the thousands of 
unknown mothers who reared their families through those 
days of distress and death: "Ye will cease to mourn, 
bereaved friends. . . . You do then bless the Giver of 
life, that the course of your endeared and honored friend 
was so long and so bright; that she entered so fully 
into the spirit of those injunctions which we have ex- 
plained, and was a minister of blessings to all within her 
influence. You are soothed to reflect, that she was 
sensible of the many tokens of divine goodness which 
marked her lot; that she received the good of her exist- 
ence with a cheerful and grateful heart; that, when 
called to weep, she bore adversity with an equal mind; 
that she used the world as not abusing it to excess, 
improving well her time, talents, and opportunities, 
and, though desired longer in this world, was fitted for a 
better happiness than this world can give."^^ 

It is apparent that men were not so neglectful of 
praise nor so cautious of good words for womankind in 
colonial days as the average run of books on American 
history would have us believe. As noted above, woman- 
liness is the characteristic most commonly pictured 
in these records of good women; but now and then some 
special quality, such as good judgment, or business 

" Lettert of A. Adams, p. 57. 



132 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

ability, or willingness to aid in a time of crisis is brought 
to light. Thus Ben Franklin writes: 

" We have an English proverb that says, ' He that 
would thrive must ask his wife.' It was lucky for me 
that I had one as much dispos'd to industry and frugality 
as myself. She assisted me chearfully in my business, 
folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, pur- 
chasing old linen rags for the paper makers, etc. We 
kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, 
our furniture of the cheapest. . . . One morning being 
call'd to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl with a 
spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without 
my knowledge by my wife. . . . She thought her 
husband deserv'd a silver spoon and china bowl as well 
as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance 
of plate and China in our house, which afterwards in a 
course of years, as our wealth increas'd, augmented 
gradually to several hundred pounds in value. "^^ 

Again, he notes on going to England: " April 5, 1757. 
I leave Home and undertake this long Voyage more 
chearful, as I can rely on your Prudence in the Manage- 
ment of my Affairs, and education of my dear Child; 
and yet I cannot forbear once more recommending her to 
you with a Father's tenderest concern. My Love to 
all."^'' 

Whether North or South the praise of woman's indus- 
try in those days is much the same. John Lawson, 
who made a survey journey through North Carolina in 
1760, wrote in his History of North Carolina that the 
women were the more industrious sex in this section, 

29 Letters of Franklin, Vol. I, p. 324. 
^"Letters of Franklin, Vol. Ill, p. 378. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 133 

and made a great deal of cloth of their own cotton, 
wool, and flax. In spite of the fact that their families 
were exceedingly large, he noted that all went " very 
decently appareled both with linens and woolens," and 
that because of the labor of the wives there was no occa- 
sion to run into the merchant's debt or lay out money 
on stores of clothing. And hundreds of miles north old 
Judge Sewall had expressed in his Diary his utmost 
confidence in his wife's financial ability when he wrote: 
" 1703-4 . . . Took 24s in my pocket, and gave my 
Wife the rest of my cash £4, 3-8 and tell her she shall 
now keep the Cash ; if I want I will borrow of her. She 
has a better faculty than I at managing Affairs: I will 
assist her; and will endeavour to live upon my salary; 
will see what it will doe. The Lord give his blessing. "^^ 

And nearly seventy years later John Adams, in writing 
to Benjamin Rush, declares a similar confidence in his 
helpmeet and expresses in his quiet way genuine pride 
in her willingness to meet all ordeals with him, " May 
1770. When I went home to my family in May 1770 
from the Town Meeting in Boston ... I said to my 
wife, ' I have accepted a seat in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, 
to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give 
you this warning that you may prepare your mind for 
your fate.' She burst into tears, but instantly cried in 
a transport of magnanimity, ' Well, I am willing in this 
cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, 
if you are ruined.' These were times, my friend, in 
Boston which tried women's souls as well as men's." 

Surely men were not unmindful in those stern days of 

" Vol. II, p. 93. 



134 Womari's Life in Colonial Days 

the strength and devotion of those women who bore 
them vahant sons and daughters that were to set a 
nation free. And, furthermore, from such tributes 
we may justly infer that women of the type of Jane 
Turell, EUza Pinckney, Abigail Adams, Margaret 
Winthrop, and Martha Washington were wives and 
mothers who, above all else, possessed womanly dignity, 
loved their homes, yet sacrificed much of the happiness 
of this beloved home life for the welfare of the public, 
were " virtuous, pious, modest, and womanly," built 
homes wherein were peace, gentleness, and love, havens 
indeed for their famous husbands, who in times of great 
national woes could cast aside the burdens of public 
life, and retire to the rest so well deserved. As the 
author of Catherine Schuyler has so fittingly said of the 
home life of her and her daughter, the wife of Hamilton : 
" Their homes were centers of peace; their material 
considerations guarded. Whatever strength they had 
was for the fray. No men were ever better entrenched 
for political conflict than Schuyler and Hamilton. . . . 
The affectionate intercourse between children, parents, 
and grand-parents reflected in all the correspondence 
accessible makes an effective contrast to the feverish 
state of public opinion and the controversies then 
raging. Nowhere would one find a more ideal illustra- 
tion of the place home and family ties should supply as 
an alleviation for the turmoils and disappointments of 
pubhc life. "32 

There are scores of others — Mercy Warren, Mrs. 
Knox, and women of their type — whose benign influ- 
ence in the colonial home could be cited. One could 

" Humphrey: Catherine Schuyler, p. 228. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 135 

scarcely overestimate the value of the loving care, 
forethought, and sympathy of those wives and mothers 
of long ago; for if all were known, — and we should be 
happy that in those days some phases of home life were 
considered too sacred to be revealed — perhaps we 
should conclude that the achievements of those famous 
founders of this nation were due as much to their wives 
as to their own native powers. The charming mingling 
of simplicity and dignity is a trait of those women that 
has often been noted; they lived such heroic lives with 
such unconscious patience and valor. For instance, 
hear the description of Mrs. Washington as given by one 
of the ladies at the camp of Morristown ; — with what 
simplicity of manner the first lady of the land aided in a 
time of distress: 

" Well, I will honestly tell you, I never was so ashamed 

in all my life. You see, Madame , and Madame 

, and Madame Budd, and myself thought we would 

visit Lady Washington, and as she was said to be so 
grand a lady, we thought we must put on our best bibbs 
and bands. So we dressed ourselfes in our most elegant 
ruffles and silks, and were introduced to her ladyship. 
And don't you think we found her knitting and with a 
speckled (check) apron on\ She received us very gra- 
ciously, and easily, but after the compliments were over, 
she resumed her knitting. There we were without a 
stitch of work, and sitting in State, but General Wash- 
ington's lady with her own hands was knitting stockings 
for herself and husband! 

" And that was not all. In the afternoon her lady- 
ship took occasion to say, in a way that we could not be 
offended at, that it was very important, at this time, 



136 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

that American ladies should be patterns of industry to 
their countrywomen, because the separation from the 
mother country will dry up the sources whence many of 
our comforts have been derived. We must become 
independent by our determination to do without what 
we cannot make ourselves. Whilst our husbands and 
brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be pat- 
terns of industry."^^ 

X. Interest in the Home 
Many indeed are the hints of gentle, loving home life 
presented in the letters and records of the eighteenth 
century colonists. Domestic life may have been rather 
severe in seventeenth century New England — our 
histories make more of it than the original sources war- 
rant — but the httle touches of courtesy, the con- 
siderate deeds of love, the words of sympathy and 
confidence show that those early husbands and wives 
were lovers even as many modern folk are lovers, and 
that in the century of the Revolution they courted and 
married and laughed and sorrowed much as we of the 
twentieth century do. Sometimes the hint is in a letter 
from brother to sister, sometimes in the message from 
patriot to wife, sometimes in the secret diary of mother 
or father; but, wherever found, the words with their 
subtle meaning make us realize almost with a shock 
that here were human hearts as much alive to joy and 
anguish as any that now beat. Hear a message from the 
practical Frankhn to his sister in 1772: " I have been 
thinking what would be a suitable present for me to 
make and for you to receive, as I hear you are grown a 

'3 Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 110. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 137 

celebrated beauty. I had almost determined on a 
tea table, but when I considered that the character of a 
good housewife was far preferable to that of being only 
a gentle woman, I concluded to send you a spinning 
wheel."^'' 

And see in these notes from him in London to his wife 
the interest of the philosopher and statesman in his 
home — his human longing that it should be comforta- 
ble and beautiful. " In the great Case ... is contain'd 
some carpeting for a best Room Floor. There is enough 
for one large or two small ones; it is to be sow'd together, 
the Edges being first fell'd down, and Care taken to 
make the Figures meet exactly: there is Bordering for 
the same. This was my Fancy. Also two large fine 
Flanders Bed Ticks, and two pair large superfine Blank- 
ets, 2 fine Damask Table Cloths and Napkins, and 43 
Ells of Ghentish Sheeting Holland. . . . There is also 
56 Yards of Cotton, printed curiously from Copper 
Plates, a new Invention, to make Bed and Window 
Curtains; and 7 yards Chair Bottoms. . . ."^^ 

" The same box contains 4 Silver Salt Ladles, newest, 
but ugliest Fashion; a little Instrument to core Apples; 
another to make little Turnips out of great ones; six 
coarse diaper Breakfast Cloths, they are to spread on the 
Tea Table, for nobody Breakfasts here on the naked 
Table; but on the cloth set a large Tea Board with the 
Cups. . . ." "London, Feb. 14, 1765. Mrs. Steven- 
son has sent you . . . Blankets, Bedticks. . . . The 
blue Mohair Stuff is for the Curtains of the Blue Cham- 
ber. The Fashion is to make one Curtain only for each 

s< Smyth: Writings of B. Franklin, Vol. II. p. 87. 
35 Smyth: Writings of B. Franklin, Vol. Ill, p. 431. 



138 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Window. Hooks are sent to fix the Rails by at the Top 
so that they might be taken down on Occasion. . . ."^^ 

It does the soul good and warms the heart toward 
old Benjamin to see him stopping in the midst of his 
labors for America to write his wife: " I send you some 
curious Beans for your Garden," and " The apples are 
extreamly welcome, . . . the minced pies are not yet 
come to hand. ... As to our lodging [she had evi- 
dently inquired] it is on deal foatherbeds, in warm 
blankets, and much more comfortable than when we 
lodged at our inn. . . ."^^ 

Surely, too, the home touch is in this message of 
Thomas Jefferson at Paris to Mrs. Adams in London. 
After telling her how happy he was to order shoes for 
her in the French capital, he continues: " To show you 
how willingly I shall ever receive and execute your 
commissions, I venture to impose one upon you. From 
what I recollect of the diaper and damask we used to 
import from England, I think they were better and 
cheaper than here. ... If you are of the same opinion 
I would trouble you to send me two sets of table cloths 
& napkins for twenty covers each."^^ And again he 
turns aside from his heavy duties in France to write his 
sister that he has sent her " two pieces of linen, three 
gowns, and some ribbon. They are done in paper, 
sealed and packed in a trunk. "^^ 

And what of old Judge Sewall of the previous century 
— he of a number of wives and innumerable children? 
Even in his day, when Puritanism was at its worst, or 

«9 Smyth: Writings of Franklin, Vol. IV, p. 359. 
" Smyth: Writings of Franklin, Vol. Ill, p. 325. 
38 Ford: Writings of Jefferson, Vol. IV, p. 101. 
»» Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 208. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 139 

as he would say, at its best, acts of thoughtfulness and 
mutual love between man and wife were apparently not 
forgotten. The wonderful Diary offers the proof: 
" June 20, 1685: Carried my Wife to Dorchester to eat 
Cherries, Raspberries, chiefly to ride and take the Air. 
The time my Wife and Mrs. Flint spent in the Orchard, 
I spent in Mr. Flint's Study, reading Calvin on the 
Psalms. . . .'"'o "July 8, 1687. Carried my wife to 
Cambridge to visit my little Cousin Margaret. . . ."*^ 
" I carry my two sons and three daughters in the 
Coach to Danford, the Turks head at Dorchester; eat 
sage Cheese, drunk Beer and Cider and came home- 
ward. . . .'"^ 

Thus human were those grave fathers of the nation. 
History and fiction often conspire to portray them as 
always walking with solemnity, talking with deep serious- 
ness, and looking upon all mortals and all things with 
chilhng gloom; but, after all, they seem, in domestic 
hfe at least, to have gone about their daily round of 
duties and pleasures in much the same spirit as we, their 
descendants, work and play. As Wharton in her 
Through Colonial Doorways says: " The dignified 
Washington becomes to us a more approachable per- 
sonality when, in a letter written by Mrs. John M. 
Bowers, we read that when she was a child of six he 
dandled her on his knee and sang to her about ' the 
old, old man and the old, old woman who lived in the 
vinegar bottle together,' ... or again, when General 
Greene writes from Middlebrook, ' We had a little 
dance at my quarters. His Excellency and Mrs. Greene 

" Vol. I. p. 83. 
"/6i(i, Vol. I. p. 170. 
*2 Ibid, Vol. I, p. 492. 



140 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

danced upwards of three hours without once sitting 
down. Upon the whole we had a pretty httle frisk." 

And does not John Adams lose some of his aloofness 
when we see the picture his wife draws of him, submitting • 
to be driven about the room by means of a switch in the 
hands of his little grandchild? In the eighteenth 
century home life was evidently just as free from unneces- 
sary dignity as it is to-day, and possibly wives had even 
more genuine affection and esteem for their husbands 
than is the case in the twentieth century. Mrs. Wash- 
ington's quiet rebuke to her daughter and some lady 
guests who came down to breakfast in dressing gowns and 
curl papers, may be cited as at least one proof of con- 
sideration for the husband. Seeing some French officers 
approaching the house, the young people begged to be 
excused; but Mrs. Washington shook her head decisively 
and answered, " No, what is good enough for General 
Washington is good enough for any of his guests." 
Indeed much of this famous man's success must be 
attributed to the noble encouragement, the considerate- 
ness, and the unsparing industry of his wife. The story 
is often told of how the painter, Peale, when he hesitated 
to call at seven in the morning, the hour for the first 
sitting for her portrait, found that even then she had 
already attended morning worship, had given her niece 
a music lesson, and had read the newspaper. 

Brooke in Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days 
furnishes another example of the kindly consideration 
so common among colonial husbands and wives. Mrs. 
John Adams, who was afflicted with headaches, believed 
that green tea brought relief, and wrote her husband to 
send her a canister. Some time afterwards she visited 



Colonial Woman and the Home 141 

Mrs. Samuel Adams, who refreshed her with this very 
drink : 

" ' The scarcity of the article made me ask where she 
got it. She replied that her sweetheart sent it to her 
by Mr. Gerry. I said nothing, but thought my sweet- 
heart might have been equally kind considering the 
disease I was visited with, and that was recommended 
as a bracer." 

" But in reaUty ' Goodman ' John had not been so 
unfeeling as he appeared. For when he read his wife's 
mention of that pain in her head he had been properly 
I concerned and straightway, he says, ' asked Mrs. Yard 
to send a pound of green tea to you by Mr. Gerry.' 
Mrs. Yard readily agreed. ' When I came home at 
night,' continues the much ' vexed ' John, ' I was told 
Mr. Gerry was gone. I asked Mrs. Yard if she had sent 
the canister. She said Yes and that Mr. Gerry under- 
took to deliver it with a great deal of pleasure. From 
that time I flattered myself you would have the poor 
relief of a dish of good tea, and I never conceived a single 
doubt that you had received it until Mr. Gerry's return. 
I asked him accidently whether he had delivered it, 
and he said, ' Yes; to Mr. Samuel Adams's lady.' "'*^ 

American letters of the eighteenth century abound 
in expressions of love and in mention of gifts sent home 
as tokens of that love. Thus, Mrs. Washington writes 
her brother in 1778: " Please to give little Patty a kiss 
for me. I have sent her a pair of shoes — there was not 
a doll to be got in the city of Philadelphia, or I would 
have sent her one (the shoes are in a bundle for my 
mamma). "^^ And again from New York in 1789 she 

" Pp. 188-9. 

" Wljarton: M. Washington, p. 127. 



142 Woma7i''s Life in Colonial Days 

writes: '' I have by Mrs. Sims sent for a watch, it is one 
of the cargoe that I have so often mentioned to you, 
that was expected, I hope is such a one as will please 
you — it is of the newest fashion, if that has any influ- 
ence in your taste. . . . The chain is of Mr. Lear's 
choosing and such as Mrs. Adams the vice President's 
Lady and those in the polite circle wares and will last 
as long as the fashion — and by that time you can get 
another of a fashionable kind — I send to dear Maria a 
piece of chintz to make her a frock — the piece of muslin 
I hope is long enough for an apron for you, and in 
exchange for it, I beg you will give me the worked mushn 
apron you have like my gown that I made just before I 
left home of worked muslin as I wish to make a petti- 
coat of the two aprons, — for my gown . . . kiss Maria 
I send her two little handkerchiefs to wipe her nose. . ."^^ 

XL Woman's Sphere 

With all their evidence of love and confidence in their 
wives, these colonial gentlemen were not, however, 
especially anxious to have womankind dabble in politics 
or other public affairs. The husbands were willing 
enough to explain public activities of a grave nature to 
their helpmeets, and sometimes even asked their opinion 
on proposed movements; but the men did not hesitate 
to think aloud the theories that the home was woman's 
sphere and domestic duties her best activities. Gover- 
nor Winthrop spoke in no uncertain terms for the 
seventeenth century when he wrote the following brief 
note in his History of New England: 

(1645) " Mr. Hopkins, the governour of Hartford 

"Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 205. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 143 

upon Connecticut, came to Boston and brought his wife 
with him (a godly young woman, and of special parts), 
who was fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her under- 
standing and reason, which had been growing upon her 
divers years, by occasion of her giving herself wholly to 
reading and writing, and had written many books. 
If she had attended to her household affairs, and such 
things as belong to women, and not gone out of her way 
and calhng to meddle in such things as are proper for 
men, whose minds are stronger, etc., she had kept her 
wits, and might have improved them usefully and 
honorably in the place God had set her." 

Thomas Jefferson, writing from Paris in 1788 to Mrs. 
Bingham, spoke in less positive language but perhaps 
just as clearly the opinion of the eighteenth century: 
" The gay and thoughtless Paris is now become a furnace 
of pohtics. Men, women, children talk nothing else 
& you know that naturally they talk much, loud & 
warm. . . . You too have had your political fever. 
But our good ladies, I trust, have been too wise to wrinkle 
their foreheads with pohtics. They are contented to 
soothe & calm the minds of their husbands returning 
ruffled from political debate. They have the good sense 
to value domestic happiness above all others. There is 
no part of the earth where so much of this is enjoyed as in 
America. You agree with me in this ; but you think that 
the pleasures of Paris more than supply its wants; 
in other words, that a Parisian is happier than an 
American. You will change your opinion, my dear 
madam, and come over to mine in the end. Recollect 
the women of this capital, some on foot, some on horses, 
& some in carriages hunting pleasure in the streets in 



144 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

routes, assemblies, & forgetting that they have left it 
behind them in their nurseries & compare them with our 
own country women occupied in the tender and tranquil 
amusements of domestic life, and confess that it is a 
comparison of Americans and angels."'*® 

And Franklin writes thus to his wife from London in 
1758: " You are very prudent not to engage in party 
Disputes. Women never should meddle with them ex- 
cept in Endeavors to reconcile their Husbands, Brothers, 
and Friends, who happen to be of contrary Sides. If 
your Sex can keep cool, you may be a means of cooling 
ours the sooner, and restoring more speedily that social 
Harmony among Fellow Citizens that is so desirable 
after long and bitter Dissension. "^^ Again, he writes 
thus to his sister: " Remember that modesty, as it 
makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, 
so the want of it infallably renders the perfect beauty 
disagreeable and odious. But when that brightest of 
female virtues shines among other perfections of body 
and mind in the same mind, it makes the woman more 
lovely than angels."'*^ 

What seems rather strange to the twentieth century 
American, the women of colonial days apparently agreed 
with such views. So few avenues of activity outside the 
home had ever been open to them that they may have 
considered it unnatural to desire other forms of work; 
but, be that as it may, there are exceedingly few instances 
in those days, of neglect of home for the sake of a career 
in public work. Abigail Adams frequently expressed it 
as her belief that a woman's first business was to help 

w Ford: Writings of Jefferson, Vol. Ill, p. 8. 

" Smyth: Writings of Franklin, Vol. III. p. 438. 

48/6t(i. Vol. II. p. 87. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 145 

her husband, and that a wife should desire no greater 
pleasure. " To be the strength, the inmost joy, of a 
man who within the conditions of his life seems to you a 
hero at every turn — there is no happiness more pene- 
trating for a wife than this."^^ 

Women hke Eliza Pinckney, Mercy Warren, Jane 
Turell, Margaret Winthrop, Catherine Schuyler, and 
Ehzabeth Hamilton most certainly believed this, and 
their lives and the careers of their husbands testify to 
the success of such womanly endeavors. Mercy Warren 
was a writer of considerable talent, author of some rather 
widely read verse, and of a History of the Revolution; 
but such literary efforts did not hinder her from doing 
her best for husband and children; while Eliza Pinck- 
ney, with all her wide reading, study of philosophy, 
agricultural investigations, experiments in the produc- 
tion of indigo and silk, was first of all a genuine home- 
maker. In fact, some times the manner in which these 
true-hearted women stood by their husbands, whether 
in prosperity or adversity, has a touch of the tragic in 
it. Beautiful Peggy Shippen, for instance, wife of 
Benedict Arnold — what a life of distress was hers! 
Little more than a year of married life had passed when 
the disgrace fell upon her. Hamilton in a letter to his 
future wife tells how Mrs. Arnold received the news of 
her husband's guilt: " She for a considerable time 
entirely lost her self control. The General went up to 
see her. She upbraided him with being in a plot to 
murder her child. One moment she raved, another she 
melted into tears. Sometimes she pressed her infant to 
her bosom and lamented its fate, occasioned by the 

*' Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 86. 



146 Wovians Life in Colonial Days 

imprudence of its father, in a manner that would have 
pierced insensibihty itself." " Could I forgive Arnold 
for sacrificing his honor, reputation, duty, I could not 
forgive him for acting a part that must have forfeited 
the esteem of so fine a woman. At present she almost 
forgets his crime in his misfortunes; and her horror at 
the guilt of the traitor is lost in her love of the man."^° 

Her friends whispered it about New York and Phila- 
delphia that she would gladly forsake her husband and 
return to her father's home; but there is absolutely no 
proof of the truth of such a statement, and it was prob- 
ably passed about to protect her family. No such 
choice, however, was given her; for within a month 
there came to her an official notice that decisively settled 
the matter: 

'' IN COUNCIL 
" Philadelphia, Friday, Oct. 27, 1780. 

" The Council taking into consideration the case of 
Mrs. Margaret Arnold (the wife of Benedict Arnold, an 
attainted traitor with the enemy at New York), whose 
residence in this city has become dangerous to the public 
safety, and this Board being desirous as much as possible 
to prevent any correspondence and intercourse being 
carried on with persons of disaffected character in this 
State and the enemy at New York, and especially with 
the said Benedict Arnold: therefore " 

" RESOLVED, That the said Margaret Arnold depart 
this State within fourteen days from the date hereof, 
and that she do not return again during the continuance 
of the present war." 

It is highly probable that she would ultimately have 

'"Humphrey: Catherine Schuyler, p. 183. 



Colonial Woma7i and the Home 147 

followed her husband, anyhow; but this notice caused 
her to join him immediately in New York, and from this 
time forth she was ever with him, bore him four children, 
and was his only real friend and comforter throughout 
the remainder of his life. 

XII. Women in Business 
Despite the popular theory about woman's sphere, 
men of the day frequently trusted business affairs to her. 
A number of times we have noted the references to the 
confidence of colonial husbands in their wives' bravery, 
shrewdness, and general ability. Such belief went 
beyond mere words; it was not infrequently expressed 
in the freedom granted the woman in business affairs 
during the absence of the husband. More will be said 
later about the capacity of the colonial woman to take 
the initiative; but a few instances may be cited at this 
point to show how genuinely important affairs were 
often intrusted to the women for long periods of time. 
We have seen Sewall's comment concerning the financial 
ability of his wife, and have heard Franklin's declara- 
tion that he was the more content to be absent some 
time because of the business sense of Mrs. Franklin. 
Indeed, several letters from Franklin indicate his confi- 
dence in her skill in such affairs. In 1756, while on a trip 
through the colonies, he wrote her: " If you have not 
Cash sufficient, call upon Mr. Moore, the Treasurer, with 
that Order of the Assembly, and desire him to pay you 
£100 of it. ... I hope in a fortnight ... to make a 
Trip to Philadelphia, and send away the Lottery Tickets. 
. . . and pay off the Prizes, etc., tho' you may pay such 
as come to hand of those sold in Philadelphia, of my 



148 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

signing. ... I hope you have paid Mrs. Stephens for 
the Bills."5i 

Again, in 1767, he writes her concerning the marriage 
of their daughter: " London, June 22. . . . It seems 
now as if I should stay here another Winter, and therefore 
I must leave it to your Judgment to act in the Affair of 
your Daughter's Match, as shall seem best. If you think 
it a suitable one, I suppose the sooner it is compleated 
the better. ... I know very little of the Gentleman 
[Richard Bache] or his Character, nor can I at this 
Distance. I hope his expectations are not great of any 
Fortune to be had with our Daughter before our Death. 
I can only say, that if he proves a good Husband to her, 
and a good Son to me, he shall find me as good a Father 
as I can be : — but at present I suppose you would agree 
with me, that we cannot do more than fit her out hand- 
somely in Cloaths and Furniture, not exceeding the whole 
Five Hundred Founds of Value. For the rest, they must 
depend as you and I did, on their own Industry and Care: 
as what remains in our Hands will be barely sufficient 
for our Support, and not enough for them when it comes 
to be divided at our Decease. . . ."^^ 

Much has been written of the shrewdness, careful- 
ness, industry, as well as general womanliness of Abigail 
Adams. For years she was deprived of her husband's 
presence and help; but under circumstances that at 
times must have been appalling, she not only kept her 
family in comfort, but by her practical judgment laid 
the foundation for that easy condition of life in which 
she and her husband spent their later years. But there 

'1 Smyth: Writings of Franklin, Vol. III. p. 323. 
'2 Smyth: Wrilinga of Franklin, Vol. I, p. 31. 



Colonial Woman and the Home 149 

were days when she evidently knew not which way to 
turn for rehef from real financial distress. In 1779 she 
wrote to her husband: " The safest way, you tell me, 
of supplying my wants is by drafts; but I cannot get 
hard money for bills. You had as good tell me to pro- 
cure diamonds for them; and, when bills will fetch but 
five for one, hard money will exchange ten, which I 
think is very provoking; and I must give at the rate of 
ten and sometimes twenty for one, for every article I 
purchase. I blush while I give you a price current; — 
all butcher's meat from a dollar to eight shilhngs per 
pound: corn is twenty-five dollars; rye thirty per 
bushel; flour fifty pounds per hundred; potatoes ten 
dollars per bushel; butter twelve shillings a pound; 
sugar twelve shillings a pound; molasses twelve dollars 
per gallon; ... I have studied and do study every 
method of economy in my power; otherwise a mint of 
money would not support a family."^'' 

Thus we have had a rather varied group of views of 
home life in colonial days. In pubhc there may have 
been a certain primness or aloofness in the relations of 
man and woman, but it would seem that in the home 
there was at least as much tender affection and mutual 
confidence as in the modern family. In all probability, 
wives and mothers gave much closer heed fo thp needs 
and tastes of husbands and children than is the case 
to-day; for woman's only sphere in that period was her 
home, and her whole heart and soul were in its success. 
Probably, too, women more thoroughly believed then 
that her chief mission in life was to aid some man in his 
public affairs by keeping always in preparation for him a 

'3 Letters of A. Adams, p. 104. 



150 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

haven of comfort, peace, and love. On the other hand, 
the father of colonial days undoubtedly gave much 
more attention to the rearing and training of his chil- 
dren than does the modern father; for the present public 
school has largely lessened the responsibilities of parent- 
hood. Both husband and wife were much more " home 
bodies " than are the modern couple. There were but 
few attractions to draw the husband away from the 
family hearth at night, and hard physical labor, far more 
common than now, made the restful home evenings and 
Sundays exceedingly welcome. 

Due to the crude household implements and the large 
families, the wife and mother undoubtedly endured far 
more physical strain and hardships than fall to the lot of 
the modern woman. The life of colonial woman, 
with the incessant child-bearing and preparation of a 
multitude of things now made in factories, probably 
wasted an undue amount of nervous energy; but it is 
doubtful whether the modern woman, with her numerous 
outside activities and nerve-racking social requirements 
has any advantage in this phase of the matter. The 
colonial wife was indeed a power in the affairs of home, 
and thus indirectly exerted a genuine influence over her 
husband. And not only the mother but the father was 
vitally interested in domestic affairs that many a man 
of to-day, and many a woman too, would consider too 
petty for their attention. 

In spite of all the colonial disadvantages, as we view 
them, it seems undeniably true that those wives who have 
left any written record of their lives were truly happy. 
Perhaps their intensely busy existence left them but 
little time to brood over wrongs or fancied ills; more 



Colonial Woman and the Home 151 

probably their deep love for the strong, level-headed and 
generally clean-hearted men who established this nation 
made life exceedingly worth while. Surely, the sanity, 
order, and stability of those homes of long ago have had 
much to do with the physical and moral excellence that 
have been so generally characteristic of the American 
people. 



CHAPTER IV 

Colonial Woman and Dress 

7. Dress Regulation hy Law 

Who would think of writing a book on woman without 
including some description of dress? Apparently the 
colonial woman, like her modern sister, found beautiful 
clothing a subject near and dear to the heart; but 
evidently the feminine nature of those old days did not 
have such hunger so quickly or so thoroughly answered 
as in our own times. The subject certainly did not then 
receive the printed notice now granted it, and it is rather 
clear that a much smaller proportion of the bread win- 
ner's income was used on gay apparel. And yet we shall 
note the same hue and cry among colonial men that we 
may hear to-day — that women are dress-crazy, and 
that the manner and expense of woman's dress are 
responsible for much of the evil of the world. 

We should not be greatly surprised, then, to discover 
that early in the history of the colonies the magistrates 
tried zealously to regulate the style and cost of female 
clothing. The deluded Puritan elders, who believed 
that everything could and should be controlled by law, 
even attempted until far into the eighteenth century to 
decide just how women should array themselves. But 
the eternal feminine was too strong for the law makers, 
and they ultimately gave up in despair. Both in Vir- 



Colonial Woman and Dress 153 

ginia and New England such rules were early given 
a trial. Thus, in the old court records we run across such 
statements as the following: " Sep. 27, 1653, the wife of 
Nicholas Maye of Newbury, Conn., was presented for 
wearing silk cloak and scarf, but cleared proving her 
husband was worth more than £200." In some of the 
Southern settlements the church authorities very 
shrewdly connected fine dress with public spiritedness 
and benevolence, and declared that every unmarried 
man must be assessed in church according to his own 
apparel, and every married man according to his own 
and his wife's apparel.^ Again in 1651 the Massa- 
chusetts court expressed its " utter detestation that men 
and women of meane condition, education and calling 
should take uppon them the garbe of gentlemen by wear- 
inge of gold or silver lace or buttons or poynts at their 
knees, or walke in great boots, or women of the same 
ranke to wear silke or tiffany hoods or scarfs." 

A large number of persons were indeed " presented " 
under this law, and it is plain that the officers of the times 
were greatly worried over this form of earthly pride ; but 
as the settlements grew older the people gradually 
silenced the magistrates, and each person dressed as he 
or she, especially the latter, chose. 

//. Contemporary Descriptions 
The result is that we find more references to dress in 
the eighteenth century than in the previous one. The 
colonists had become more prosperous, a little more 
worldly, and certainly far less afraid of the wrath of God 
and the judges. As travel to Europe became safer and 

> Fiske: Old Virginia, Vol. I, p. 246. 



154 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

more common, visitors brought new fashions, and pro- 
vinciahsm in manner, style, and costume became much 
less apparent. Madame Knight, who wrote an account 
of her journey from Boston to New York in 1704, has 
left some record of dress in the different colonies. Of 
the country women in Connecticut she says: " They are 
very plain in their dress, throughout all the colony, as I 
saw, and follow one another in their modes; that you 
may know where they belong, especially the women, 
meet them where you will." And see her description of 
the dress of the Dutch women of New York: " The 
English go very fashionable in their dress. But the 
Dutch, especially the middling sort, differ from our 
women in their habit, go loose, wear French muches, 
which are like a cap and a head band in one, leaving 
their ears bare, which are set out with jewels of a large 
size, and many in number; and their fingers hooked with 
rings, some with large stones in them of many colors, as 
were their pendants in their ears, which you should see 
very old women wear as well as young." 

As Mrs. Knight was so observant of how others dressed, 
let us take a look at her own costume, as described in 
Brooks' Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days: " Debby 
looked with curious admiring eyes at the new comer's 
costume, the scarlet cloak and little round cap of Lin- 
coln green, the puffed and ruffled sleeves, the petticoat 
of green-drugget cloth, the high heeled leather shoes, 
with their green ribbon bows, and the riding mask of 
black velvet which Debby remembered to have heard, 
only ladies of the highest gentility wore."^ 

The most famous or most dignified of colonial gentle- 

» Page 76. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 155 

men were not above commenting upon woman's dress. 
Old Judge Sewall mingled with his accounts of courts, 
weddings, and funerals such items as: " Apr. 5, 1722. 
My Wife wore her new Gown of sprig'd Persian." 
Again, we note the philosopher-statesman, Franklin, 
discoursing rather fluently to his wife about dress, and, 
from what we glean, he seems to have been pretty well 
informed on matters of style. Thus in 1766 he wrote: 
" As the Stamp Act is at length repeal'd, I am wilhng 
you should have a new Gown, which you may suppose I 
did not send sooner, as I knew you would not like to be 
finer than your neighbours, unless in a Gown of your 
own spinning. Had the trade between the two Countries 
totally ceas'd, it was a Comfort to me to recollect, that 
I had once been cloth'd from Head to Foot in Woolen 
and Linnen of my Wife's Manufacture, that I never was 
prouder of any Dress in my Life, and that she and her 
Daughter might do it again if it was necessary. . . . 
Joking apart, I have sent you a fine Piece of Pompadore 
Sattin, 14 Yards, cost 11 shillings a Yard; a silk Negligee 
and Petticoat of brocaded Lutestring for my dear Sally, 
with two dozen Gloves. . . ."^ 

A letter dated from London, 1758, reads: ... "I 
send also 7 yards of printed Cotton, blue Ground, to 
make you a Gown. I bought it by Candle-Light, and 
lik'd it then, but not so well afterwards. If you do not 
fancy it, send it as a present from me to sister Jenny. 
There is a better Gown for you, of flower 'd Tissue, 16 
j-'ards, of Mrs. Stevenson's Fancy, cost 9 Guineas and I 
think it a great Beauty. There was no more of the sort 
or you should have had enough for a Neghgee or Suit.""* 

» Smvth: Writings of B. Franklin, Vol. IV. p. 449. 
*Ibid: Vol. Ill, p. 431. 



156 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

< 

And again: " Had I been well, I intended to have 
gone round among the shops and bought some pretty 
things for you and my dear, good Sally (whose little 
hands you say eased your headache) to send by this 
ship, but I must now defer it to the next, having only got 
a crimson satin cloak for you, the newest fashion, and 
the black silk for Sally; but Billy sends her a scarlet 
feather, muff, and tippet, and a box of fashionable 
linen for her dress. . . ."^ 

He sends her also in 1758 " a newest fashion'd white 
Hat and Cloak and sundery little things, which I hope 
will get safe to hand. I send a pair of Buckles, made of 
French Paste Stones, which are next in Lustre to Dia- 
monds. . . ."^ 

Abigail Adams also has left us rather detailed descrip- 
tions of her dresses prepared for various special occa- 
sions. Thus, after being presented at the English Court, 
she wrote home: " Your Aunt then wore a full dress 
court cap without the lappets, in which was a wreath of 
white flowers, and blue sheafs, two black and blue flat 
feathers, pins, bought for Court, and a pair of pearl 
earings, the cost of them — no matter what; less than 
diamonds, however. A sapphire blue demi-saison with 
a satin stripe, sack and petticoat trimmed with a broad 
black lace; crape flounce, & leave made of blue ribbon, 
and trimmed with white floss; wreaths of black velvet 
ribbon spotted with steel beads, which are much in 
fashion, and brought to such perfection as to resemble 
diamonds; white ribbon also in the van dyke style, 
made up of the trimming, which looked very elegant, a 

ilbid: Vol. Ill, p. 419. 
^Ihid: Vol. Ill, p. 438. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 157 

full dress handkerchief, and a bouquet of roses. . . . 
Now for your cousin: A small, white leghorn hat, 
bound with pink satin ribbon; a steel buckle and 
band which turned up at the side, and confined a large 
pink bow; large bow of the same kind of ribbon behind; 
a wreath of full-blown roses round the crown, and an- 
other of buds and roses within side the hat, which being 
placed at the back of the hair brought the roses to the 
edge; you see it clearly; one red and black feather, 
with two white ones, compleated the head-dress. A 
gown and coat of chamberi gauze with a red satin stripe 
over a pink waist, and coat flounced with crape, trimmed 
with broad point and pink ribbon; wreaths of roses 
across the coat; gauze sleeves and ruffles."^ 

Although it is absolutely impossible for a man to form 
the picture, this sounds as though it were elegant. 
Again she writes: " Cousin's dress is white, . . . like 
your aunts, only differently trimmed and ornamented; 
her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with 
white ribbon; the petticoat, which is the most showy 
part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are 
called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; 
the sleeves white crape, drawn over silk, with a row of 
lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half 
way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle, 
a little flower stuck between; a kind of hat-cap, with 
three large feathers, and a bunch of flowers; a wreath of 
flowers upon the hair."^ 

It is apparent that no large amount of Puritanical 
scruples about fine array had passed over into eighteenth 

' Letters of A. Adams, p. 282. 
' Letters of A. Adams, p. 250. 



158 Womans Life in Colonial Days 

century America. Whether in New England, the Middle 
Colonies, or the South, the natural longing of woman for 
ornamentation and beautiful adornment had gained 
supremacy, and from the records we may judge that 
some ladies of those days expended an amount on cloth- 
ing not greatly out of proportion with the amount spent 
to-day by the well-to-do classes. For instance, in 
Philadelphia, we find a Miss Chambers adorned as 
follows: " On this evening, my dress was white brocade 
silk, trimmed with silver, and white silk high-heeled 
shoes, embroidered with silver, and a light-blue sash 
with silver and tassel, tied at the left side. My watch 
was suspended at the right, and my hair was in its 
natural curls. Surmounting all was a small white hat 
and white ostrich feather, confined by brilliant band 
and buckle."^ 

///. Raillery and Scolding 

Of course, the colonial man found woman's dress a 
subject for jest; what man has not? Certainly in 
America the custom is of long standing. Old Nathaniel 
Ward, writing in 1647 in his Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, 
declares: "It is a more common than convenient say- 
ing that nine tailors make a man; it were well if nine- 
teen could make a woman to her mind. If tailors were 
men indeed well furnished, but with more moral princi- 
ples, they would disdain to be led about hke apes by 
such mimic marmosets. It is a most unworthy thing 
for men that have bones in them to spend their lives in 
making fiddle-cases for futilous women's fancies; which 
are the very pettitoes of infirmity, the giblets of per- 
quisquilian toys. ... It is no little labor to be continu- 

• Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 227. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 159 

ally putting up English women into outlandish casks; 
who if they be not shifted anew once in a few months 
grow too sour for their husbands. ... He that makes 
coats for the moon had need take measure every noon, 
and he that makes for women, as often to keep them 
from lunacy." 

Indeed Ward becomes genuinely excited over the 
matter, and says some really bitter things: " I shall 
make bold for this once to borrow a little of their long- 
waisted but short-skirted patience. ... It is beyond 
the ken of my understanding to conceive, how those 
women should have any true grace, or valuable virtue, 
that have so little wit as to disfigure themselves with such 
exotic garbes, as not only dismantle their native lovely 
lustre, but transclouts them into gant-bar-geese, ill 
shapen-shotten-shell-fish, Egyptian Hyeroglyphics, or at 
the best French flirts of the pastery, which a proper 
English woman should scorn with her heels. ..." 

The raillery became more frequent and certainly much 
more good-natured in the eighteenth century. Philip 
Fithian, a Virginia tutor, writing in 1773, said in his 
Dianj: " Almost every Lady wears a red Cloak; and 
when thej^ ride out they tye a red handkerchief over 
their Head and face, so that when I first came into 
Virginia, I was distressed whenever I saw a Lady, for I 
thought she had the toothache. 

In fact, the subject sometimes inspired the men to 
poetry, as may be seen from the following specimen : 

" Young ladies, in town, and those that live 'round, 
Let a friend at this season advise you; 
Since money's so scarce, and times growing worse, 
Strange things may soon hap and surprise you. 



160 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

" First, then, throw aside your topknots of pride, 
Wear none but your own country linen, 
Of Economy boast, let your pride be the most, 
To show clothes of your own make and spinning. 

" What if home-spun, they say, is not quite so gay, 
As brocades, yet be not in a passion, 
For when once it is known, this is much worn in town, 
One and all will cry out — ' 'Tis the fashion.' 

" Throw aside your Bohea and your Green Hyson tea, 
And all things with a new-fashion duty; 
Procure a good store of the choice Laborador 
For there'll soon be enough here to suit you. 

" These do without fear, and to all you'll appear 
Fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever, 
Tho' the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish, 
And love you much stronger than ever."i° 

A perusal of extracts from newspapers of those days 
makes it clear that a good many men were of the opinion 
that more simpHcity in dress would indeed make women 
" fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever." The Essex 
Journal of Massachusetts of the late eighteenth century, 
commenting upon the follies common to " females " 
— vanity, affectation, talkativeness, etc., — adds the 
following remarks on dress: " Too great delight in 
dress and finery by the expense of time and money which 
they occasion in some instances to a degree beyond all 
bounds of decency and common sense, tends naturally 
to sink a woman to the lowest pitch of contempt amongst 
all those of either sex who have capacity enough to put 
two thoughts together. A creature who spends its 

«o Buckingham: Reminiscences, Vol. I, p. 34. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 161 

whole time in dressing, prating, gaming, and gadding, 
is a being — originally indeed of the rational make, 
but who has sunk itself beneath its rank, and is to be 
considered at' present as nearly on a level with the 
monkey species. ..." 

Even pamphlets and small books were written on the 
subject by ireful male citizens, and the publisher of the 
Boston News Letter braved the wrath of womankind by 
inserting the following advertisement in his paper: 
" Just pubhshed and Sold by the Printer hereof, HOOP 
PETTICOATS, Arraigned and condemned by the Light 
of Nature and Law of God."^^ Many a scribbler hiding 
behind some Latin pen name, such as Publicus, poured 
forth in those early papers his spleen concerning woman's 
costume. Thus in 1726 the New England Weekly 
Journal published a series of essays on the vanities of 
females, and the writer evidently found much relief in 
delivering himself on those same hoop skirts: " I shall 
not busy myself with the ladies' shoes and stockings at 
all, but I can't so easily pass over the Hoop when 'tis 
in my way, and therefore I must beg pardon of my fair 
readers if I begin my attack here. 'Tis now some years 
since this remarkable fashion made a figure in the world 
and from its first beginning divided the public opinion 
as to its convenience and beauty. For my part I was 
always willing to indulge it under some restrictions: 
that is to say if 'tis not a rival to the dome of St. Paul's 
to incumber the way, or a tub for the residence of a new 
Diogenes. If it does not eclipse too much beauty 
above or discover too much below. In short, I am for 
living in peace, and I am afraid a fine lady with too much 

» Buckingham. Vol. I, p. 88. 



162 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

liberty in this particular would render my own imagina- 
tion an enemy to my repose." 

Perhaps, however, in this particular instance, men had 
some excuse for their tirade; it may have come as a 
matter of self-preservation. We can more readily 
understand their feelings when we learn the size of the 
cause of it. In October, 1774, after Margaret Hutchin- 
son had been presented at the Court of St. James, she 
wrote her sister: " We called for Mrs. Keene, but found 
that one coach would not contain more than two such 
mighty hoops; and papa and Mr. K. were obliged to go 
in another coach." 

But hoops and bonnets and other extravagant forms 
of dress were not the only phases of woman's adorn- 
ment that startled the men and fretted their souls. 
The very manner in which the ladies wore their hair 
caused their lords and masters to run to the news- 
paper with a fresh outburst of contempt. In 1731 some 
Massachusetts citizen with more wrath than caution 
expressed himself thus: " I come now to the Head 
Dress — the very highest point of female eloquence, 
and here I find such a variety of modes, such a medley 
of decoration, that 'tis hard to know where to fix, lace 
and cambrick, gauze and fringe, feathers and ribbands, 
create such a confusion, occasion such frequent changes 
that it defies art, judgement, or taste to recommend 
them to any standard, or reduce them to any order. 
That ornament of the hair which is styled the Horns, 
and has been in vogue so long, was certainly first calcu- 
lated by some good-natured lady to keep her spouse in 
countenance.''^^ 

"Buckingham, Vol. I, p. 115. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 163 

This last statement proved too much; it was the 
straw that broke the camel's back; even the meek colo- 
nial women could not suffer this to go unanswered. In 
the next number of the same paper appeared the follow- 
ing, written probably by some high-spirited dame: 
" You seem to blame us for our innovations and fleeting 
fancy in dress which you are most notoriously guilty of, 
who esteem yourselves the mighty, wise, and head of 
the species. Therefore, I think it highly necessary that 
you show us the example first, and begin the reformation 
among yourselves, if you intend your observations shall 
have any with us. I leave the world to judge whether 
our petticoat resembles the dome of St. Paul's nearer 
than you in your long coats do the Monument. You 
complain of our masculine appearance in our riding 
habits, and indeed we think it is but reasonable that we 
should make reprisals upon you for the invasion of our 
dress and figure, and the advances you make in effemi- 
nency, and your degeneracy from the figure of man. 
Can there be a more ridiculous appearance than to see a 
smart fellow within the compass of five feet immersed in 
a huge long coat to his heels with cuffs to the arm pits, 
the shoulders and breast fenced against the inclemencies 
of the weather by a monstrous cape, or rather short 
cloak, shoe toes, pointed to the heavens in imitation of 
the Lap-landers, with buckles of a harnass size? I confess 
the beaux with their toupee wigs make us extremely 
merry, and frequently put me in mind of my favorite 
monkey both in figure and apishness, and were it not for 
a reverse of circumstances, I should be apt to mistake 
it for Pug, and treat him with the same familiarity."^^ 

" Ibid. 



164 Wommi's Life in Colonial Days 

IV. Extravagance in Dress 

To all appearances it was less safe in colonial days for 
mere man to comment on female attire than at present; 
for the typical gentlemen before 1800 probably wore as 
many velvets, brocades, satins, laces, and wigs as anj^ 
woman of the day or since. Each sex, however, wasted 
more than enough of both time and money on the matter. 
Grieve, the translator of Chastellux, the Frenchman who 
made rather extensive observations in America at the 
close of the Revolution, says in a footnote to Chastel- 
lux's Travels: " The rage for dress amongst the women 
in America, in the very height of the miseries of the war, 
was beyond all bounds; nor was it confined to the great 
towns; it prevailed equally on the sea coasts and in 
the woods and solitudes of the vast extent of country 
from Florida to New Hampshire. In travelling into the 
interior parts of Virginia I spent a delicious day at an 
inn, at the ferry of the Shenandoah, or the Catacton 
Mountains, with the most engaging, accomplished and 
voluptuous girls, the daughters of the landlord, a native 
of Boston transplanted thither, who with all the gifts of 
nature possessed the arts of dress not unworthy of 
Parisian milliners, and went regularly three times a week 
to the distance of seven miles, to attend the lessons of 
one DeGrace, a French dancing master, who was making 
a fortune in the country. "^^ 

Such a statement must not, of course, be taken too 
seriously; for, as we have seen, many women, such as 
Mrs. Washington, Abigail Adams, and Eliza Pinckney, 
were almost parsimonious in dress during the great 
strife. Doubtless there were many, however, particu- 

'« Vol. II, p. 115. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 165 

larly in the cities, who could not or would not restrain 
their love of finery, especially when so many handsome 
and gaily uniformed British officers were at hand. But 
long before and after the Revolution there seems to 
have been no lack of fashionable clothing. The old 
diaries and account books tell the tale. Thus, Washing- 
ton has left us an account of articles ordered from London 
for his wife. Among these were " a salmon-colored 
tabby velvet of the enclosed pattern, with satin flowers, 
to be made in a sack and coat, ruffles to be made of 
Brussels lace or Point, proper to be worn with the above 
negligee, to cost £20; 2 pairs of white silk hose; 1 pair of 
white satin shoes of the smallest fives; 1 fashionable hat 
or bonnet; 6 pairs woman's best kid gloves; 6 pairs mitts; 
1 dozen breast-knots; 1 dozen most fashionable cambric 
pocket handkerchiefs; 6 pounds perfumed powder; 
a puckered petticoat of fashionable color; a silver tabby 
velvet petticoat; handsome breast flowers; . . ." 
For little Miss Custis was ordered " a coat made of 
fashionable silk, 6 pairs of white kid gloves, hand- 
some egrettes of different sorts, and one pair of pack 
thread stays. . ."^^ 

These may seem indeed rather strange gifts for a 
mere girl ; but we should remember that children of that 
day wore dresses similar to those of their mothers, and 
such items as high-heeled shoes, heavy stays, and enor- 
mous hoop petticoats were not at all unusual. Many 
things unknown to the modern child were commonly used 
by the daughters of the wealthier parents, such as long- 
armed gloves and complexion masks, made of linen or 
velvet, and sun-bonnets sewed through the hair and under 

"Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 59. 



166 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

the neck — all this to ward off every ray of the sun, and 
thus preserve the delicate complexion of childhood. 

That we may judge of the quality and quantity of a 
girl's apparel in those fastidious days, examine this list 
of clothes sent by Colonel John Lewis of Virginia in 1727 
to be used by his ward, in an English school: 

" A cap ruffle and tucker, the lace 5 shillings per yard, 

1 pair White Stays, 4 pair plain Spanish shoes, 
8 pair White Kid gloves, 2 pair calf shoes, 

2 pair coloured kid gloves, 1 mask, 

2 pair worsted hose, 1 fan, 

3 pair thread hose, 1 necklace, 

1 pair silk shoes laced, 1 Girdle and buckle, 

1 pair morocco shoes, 1 piece fashionable calico, 

1 Hoop Coat, 4 yards ribbon for knots, 

1 Hat, Ij yd. Cambric, 

1 mantua and coat of lute-string."" 

One New England miss, sent to a finishing school at 
Boston, had twelve silk gowns, but her teacher " wrote 
home that she must have another gown of a * recently 
imported rich fabric,' which was at once bought for her 
because it was suitable for her rank and station. "^^ 
Even the frugal Ben Franklin saw to it that his wife and 
daughter dressed as well as the best of them in rich 
gowns of silk. In the Pennsylvania Gazette of 1750 
there appeared the following advertisement: " Whereas 
on Saturday night last the house of Benjamin Franklin 
of this city, Printer, was broken open, and the following 
things feloniously taken away, viz., a double necklace 
of gold beads, a woman's long scarlet cloak almost new, 
with a double cape, a woman's gown, of printed cotton 

>' Quoted in Earle: Home Life in Colonial Days, p. 290. 
" Earle: Home Life in Colonial Days, p. 291. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 167 

of the sort called brocade print, very remarkable, the 
ground dark, with large red roses, and other large and 
yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, with 
many green leaves; a pair of women's stays covered with 
white tabby before, and dove coloured tabby behind. . ." 

It seems that in richness of dress Philadelphia led the 
colonial world, even outrivahng the expenditure of the 
wealthy Virginia planters for this item. While Phila- 
delphia was the political and social center of the day this 
extravagance was especially noticeable; but when New 
York became the capital the Quaker city was almost 
over-shadowed by the gaiety displayed in dress by the 
Dutch city. " You will find here the English fashions," 
says St. John de Crevecoeur. " In the dress of the 
women you will see the most brilliant silks, gauzes, 
hats and borrowed hair. ... If there is a town on the 
American continent where English luxury displayed its 
follies it was in New York.''^^ 

All the blame, however, must not be placed upon the 
shoulders of colonial dames. What else could the women 
do? They felt compelled to make an appearance at least 
equal to that of the men, and probably Solomon in all 
his glory was not arrayed as one of these men. Even 
the conservative Washington appeared on state occa- 
sions in " black velvet, a silver or steel hilted small 
sword at his left side, pearl satin waistcoat, fine linen 
and lace, hair full powdered, black silk hose, and bag."^^ 
Such finery was not limited to the ruling classes of the 
land; a Boston printer of the days immediately follow- 
ing the Revolution appeared in a costume that surpassed 

"Wharton: Through Colonial Doorways, p. 89. 
i» Wharton: M. Washington, p. 225. 



168 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

the most startling that Boston of our times could dis- 
play. " He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen 
small clothes, white silk stockings, and pumps fastened 
with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot, 
from instep to toe. His small clothes were tied at the 
knees with ribbon of the same color in double bows, 
the ends reaching down to the ankles. His hair in 
front was well loaded with pomatum, frizzled or craped 
and powdered. Behind, his natural hair was augmented 
by the addition of a large queue called vulgarly a false 
tail, which, enrolled in some yards of black ribbon, hung 
half way down his back."^'' 

Surely this is enough of the men; let us return to the 
women. See the future Dolly Madison at her first 
meeting with the " great, little Mr. Madison." She had 
lived a Quaker during her girlhood, but she grew bravely 
over it. " Her gown of mulberry satin, with tulle 
kerchief folded over the bosom, set off to the best advan- 
tage the pearly white and delicate rose tints of that 
complexion which constituted the chief beauty of 
Dolly Todd. "21 The ladies of the Tory class evidently 
tried to outshine those of the patriot party, and when 
there was a British function of any sort, — as was often 
the case at Philadelphia — the scene was indeed gay, 
with richly gowned matrons and maids on the arms of 
English officers, brave with gold lace and gold buttons. 
One great fete or festival known as the " Meschianza," 
given at Philadelphia, was so gorgeous a pageant that 
years afterwards society of the capital talked about it. 
Picture the costume of Miss Franks of Philadelphia on 

2" Earle: Home Life in Colonial Days, p. 294. 
2' Goodwin: Dolly Madison, p. 54. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 169 

that occasion: " The dress is more ridiculous and pretty 
than anything I ever saw — great quantity of different 
colored feathers on the head at a time besides a thousand 
other things. The Hair dress'd very high in the shape 
Miss Vining's was the night we returned from Smiths — 
the Hat we found in your Mother's Closet wou'd be of a 
proper size. I have an afternoon cap with one wing — 
tho' I assure you I go less in the fashion than most of the 
Ladies — none being dress'd without a hoop. . . ."^^ 
And, again, perhaps the modern woman can appre- 
ciate the following description of a costume seen at the 
inaugural ball of 1789: " It was a plain celestial blue 
satin gown, with a white satin petticoat. On the neck 
was worn a very large Italian gauze handkerchief, with 
border stripes of satin. The head-dress was a pouf of 
satin in the form of a globe, the creneaux or head-piece 
which was composed of white satin, having a double 
wing in large pleats and trimmed with a wreath of 
artificial roses. The hair was dressed all over in de- 
tached curls, four of which in two ranks, fell on each 
side of the neck and were relieved behind by a floating 
chignon. "2' 

Unlike the other first ladies of the day, Martha 
Washington made little effort toward ostentation, and 
her plain manner of dress was sometimes the occasion of 
astonishment and comment on the part of wives of 
foreign representatives. Says Miss Chambers concern- 
ing this contrast between European women and Mrs. 
Washington, as shown at a birthday ball tendered the 
President in 1795: " She was dressed in a rich silk, but 

•2 Wharton: Through Colonial Doorways, p. 219. 

23 Wharton: Through Colonial Doorways, p. 79. * 



170 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

entirely without ornament, except the animation her 
amiable heart gives to her countenance. Next her were 
seated the wives of the foreign ambassadors, glittering 
from the floor to the summit of their head-dress. One 
of the ladies wore three large ostrich feathers, her brow 
was encircled by a sparkling fillet of diamonds; her 
neck and arms were almost covered with jewels, and two 
watches were suspended from her girdle, and all reflect- 
ing the light from a hundred directions."-* 

Nor was this richness of dress among foreign visitors 
confined to the women. Sally McKean, who became 
the wife of the Spanish minister to America, wore at one 
state function, " a blue satin dress, trimmed with white 
crape and flowers, and petticoat of white crape richly 
embroidered and across the front a festoon of rose color, 
caught up with flowers"; but her future husband had 
" his hair powdered like a snow ball; with dark striped 
silk coat lined with satin, black silk breeches, white silk 
stockings, shoes and buckles. He had by his side an 
elegant hilted small-sword, and his chapeau tipped with 
white feathers, under his arm."^^ 

There were, of course, no fashion plates in that day, 
nor were there any living " models " to strut back and 
forth before keen-eyed customers; but fully dressed 
dolls were imported from France and England, and 
sent from town to town as examples of properly attired 
ladies. Eliza Southgate Bowne, after seeing the dolls 
in her shopping expeditions, wrote to a friend: " Caro- 
line and I went a-shopping yesterday, and 'tis a fact 
that the little white satin Quaker bonnets, cap-crowns, 

21 Wharton : Martha Washington, p 230. 

^ Crawford: Romantic Days in the Early Republic, p. 53. 



Colonial Woman and Dress 171 

are the most fashionable that are worn — lined with 
pink or blue or white — but I'll not have one, for if any 
of my old acquaintance should meet me in the street 
they would laugh. . . . Large sheer-muslin shawls, 
put on as Sally Weeks wears hers, are much worn; they 
show the form through and look pretty. Silk nabobs, 
plaided, colored and white are much worn — very short 
waists — hair very plain." 

Of course, the men of the day, found a good deal of 
pleasure in poking fun at woman's use of dress and 
ornaments as bait for entrapping lovers, and many a 
squib expressing this theory appeared in the newspapers. 
These C3^nical notes no more represented the general 
opinion of the people than do similar satires in the comic 
sheets of to-day; but they are interesting at least, as 
showing a long prevailing weakness among men. The 
following sarcastic advertisement, for instance, was 
written by John Trumbull: 

" To Be Sold at Public Vendue, 

The Whole Estate of 

Isabella Sprightly, Toast and Coquette, 

(Now retiring from Business) 

Imprimis, all the tools and utensils necessary for 
carrying on the trade, viz.: several bundles of darts and 
arrows well pointed and capable of doing great execution. 
A considerable quantity of patches, paint, brushes and 
cosmetics for plastering, painting, and white-washing 
the face; a complete set of caps, " a la mode a Paris," of 
all sizes, from five to fifteen inches in height; with 
several dozens of cupids, very proper to be stationed on 
a ruby lip, a diamond eye, or a roseate cheek. 



172 Womaii's Life in Colonial Days 

" Item, as she proposes by certain ceremonies to 
transform one of her humble servants into a husband and 
keep him for her own use, she offers for sale, Florio, 
Daphnis, Cynthio, and Cleanthes, with several others 
whom she won by a constant attendance on business dur- 
ing the space of four years. She can prove her indis- 
putable right thus to dispose of them by certain deeds of 
gifts, bills of sale, and attestation, vulgarly called love 
letters, under their own hands and seals. They will be 
offered very cheap, for they are all of them broken- 
hearted, consumptive, or in a dying condition. Nay, 
some of them have been dead this half year, as they 
declare and testify in the above mentioned writing. 
" N. B, Their hearts will be sold separately." 
When all the above implements and wiles failed to 
entrap a lover, and the coquette was left as a " wall- 
flower," as the Germans express it, the men of the day 
satirized the unfortunate one just as mercilessly. Read, 
for example, a few lines from the Progress of Dullness, 
thought to be a very humorous poem in its time: 

" Poor Harriett now hath had her day; 
No more the beaux confess her sway ; 
New beauties push her from the stage; 
She trembles at the approach of age, 
And starts to view the altered face 
That wrinkles at her in her glass. 

" Despised by all and doomed to meet 
Her lovers at her rivals' feet, 
She flies assembhes, shuns the ball, > 

And cries out, vanity, on all; 

" Now careless grown of airs poUte 
Her noon-day night-cap meets the sight ; 



Colonial Woman and Dress 173 

Her hair uncombed collects together 
With ornaments of many a feather. 

" She spends her breath as years prevail 
At this sad wicked world to rail, 
To slander all her sex impromptu, 
And wonder what the times will come to." 

During the earlier years of the seventeenth century, 
as we have noted, this deprecatory opinion by men 
concerning woman's garb was not confined to ridicule 
in journals and books, but was even incorporated into 
the laws of several towns and colonies. Women were 
compelled to dress in a certain manner and within fixed 
financial limits, or suffered the penalties of the courts. 
Many were the " presentations," as such cases were 
called, of our colonial ancestors. As material wealth 
increased, however, dress became more and more elabo- 
rate until in the era shortly before and after the Revolu- 
tion fashions were almost extravagant. Costly satins, 
silks, velvets, and brocades were among the common 
items of dress purchased by even the moderately well- 
to-do city and planter folk. If space permitted, many 
quotations by travellers from abroad, accustomed to 
the splendor of European courts, could be presented to 
show the surprising quaUty and good taste displayed in 
the garments of the better classes of the New World. 
To their honor, however, it may be remembered that 
these same American women in the days of tribulation 
when their husbands were battling for a new nation were 
willing to cast aside such indications of wealth and pride, 
and don the humble home-spun garments made by their 
own hands. 



CHAPTER V 

Colonial Woman and Social Life 

I. Southern Isolation and Hospitality 
In the earlier part of the seventeenth century the 
social life of the colonists, at least in New England, was 
what would now be considered monotonous and dull. 
Aside from marriages, funerals, and church-going there 
was little to attract the Puritans from their steady 
routine of farming and trading. In New York the 
Dutch were apparently contented with their daily 
eating, drinking, smoking, and walking along the 
Battery or out the country road, the Bowery. In 
Virginia life, as far as social activities were concerned, 
was at first dull enough, although even in the early 
days of Jamestown there was some display at the Gover- 
nor's mansion, while the sessions of court and assemblies 
brought planters and their families to town for some 
brief period of balls, banquets, and dancing. 

As the seventeenth century progressed, however, 
visiting, dinner parties, dances, and hunts in the South 
became more and more gay, and the balls in the planta- 
tion mansions became events of no little splendor. 
Wealth, gained through tobacco, increased rapidly in this 
section, and the best that England and France could 
offer was not too expensive for the luxurious homes of 
not only Virginia but Maryland and South Carolina. 
The higher Dutch families of New York also began to 
show considerable vigor socially; Philadelphia forgot 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 175 

the staid dignity of its founder; and even New England, 
especially Boston, began to use accumulated wealth in 
ways of levity that would have shocked the Puritan 
fathers. 

In the eighteenth-century South we find accounts of 
a carefree, pleasure-loving, joyous mode of life that read 
almost like stories of some fairy world. The traditions 
of the people, among whom was an element of Cavalier 
blood, the genial climate, the use of slave labor, the 
great demand for tobacco, all united to develop a social 
life much more unbounded and hospitable than that 
found in the northern colonies. But this constant 
raising of tobacco soon exhausted the soil; and the 
planters, instead of attempting to enrich their lands, 
found it more profitable constantly to advance into the 
forest wilderness to the west, where the process of gaining 
wealth at the expense of the soil might be repeated. 
This was well for American civilization, but not imme- 
diately beneficial to the intellectual growth of the people. 
The mansions were naturally far apart; towns were few 
in number; schools were almost impossible; and suc- 
cessful newspapers were for many years simply out of the 
question. Washington's estate at Mt. Vernon con- 
tained over four thousand acres; many other farms were 
far larger; each planter hved in comparative isolation. 
Those peculiar advantages arising from living near a 
city were totally absent. As late as 1740 Eliza Pinckney 
wrote a friend in England: " We are 17 miles by land 
and 6 by water from Charles Town." 

Thus, each large owner had a tendency to become a 
petty feudal lord, controlling large numbers of slaves 
and unlimited resources of soil and labor within an 



176 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

arbitrary grasp. As there were numerous navigable 
streams, many of the planters possessed private wharfs 
where tobacco could be loaded for shipment and goods 
from abroad delivered within a short distance of the 
mansion. Such an economic scheme made trading 
centers almost unnecessary and tended to keep the 
population scattered. " In striking contrast to New 
England was the absence of towns, due mainly to two 
reasons — first, the wealth of the water courses, which 
enabled every planter of means to ship his products 
from his own wharf, and, secondly, the culture of tobacco, 
which scattered the people in a continual search for new 
and richer lands. This rural life, while it hindered 
co-operation, promoted a spirit of independence among 
the whites of all classes which counter-acted the aristo- 
cratic form of government."^ 

Channing, writing of conditions in 1800, the close of 
this period, says: " The great Virginia plantations were 
practically self-sustaining, so far as the actual neces- 
saries of life were concerned ; the slaves had to be clothed 
and fed whether tobacco and wheat could be sold or 
not, but they produced, with the exception of the raw 
material for making their garments, practically all that 
was essential to their well being. The money which the 
Virginia planters received for their staple products 
was used to purchase articles of luxury — wine for the 
men, articles of apparel for the women, furnishings for 
the house, and things of that kind, and to pay the interest 
on the load of indebtedness which the Virginia aristoc- 
racy owed at home and abroad."^ 

1 Tyler: England in America, p. 115, American Nation Series. 

2 The Jeffersonian System, p. 218, American Nation Series. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 177 

Again, the same historian says: " The plenty of every- 
thing made hospitahty universal, and the wealth of the 
country was greatly promoted by the opening of the 
forests. Indeed, so contented were the people with 
their new homes (1652) that . . . ' seldom (if ever) 
any that hath continued in Virginia any time will or do 
desire to live in England, but post back with what 
expedition they can, although many are landed men in 
England, and have good estates there, and divers ways 
of preferments propounded to them, to entice and 
perswade their continuants.' "^ 

Now, this comparative isolation of the plantation life 
made visiting and neighborliness doubly grateful, and 
hospitality and the spirit of kindness became almost 
proverbial in Virginia. As far back as 1656 John Ham- 
mond of Virginia and Maryland noted this fact with no 
little pride in his Leah and Rachel; for, said he, " If any 
fall sick and cannot compasse to follow his crope, which 
if not followed, will soon be lost, the adjoyning neigh- 
bors will either voluntarily or upon a request joyn 
together, and work in it by spels, until! the honour 
recovers, and that gratis, so that no man by sicknesse 
lose any part of his years worke. . . . Let any travell, 
it is without charge, and at every house is entertain- 
ment as in a hostelry, and with it hearty welcome are 
strangers entertained. ... In a word, Virginia wants 
not good victuals, wants not good dispositions, and as 
God hath freely bestowed it, they as freely impart with 
it, yet are there as well bad natures as good." 

This spirit of brotherhood and hospitality, was, of 
course, very necessary in the first days of colonization, 

Ubid, p. 115. 



178 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

and the sudden increase of wealth prevented its becoming 
irksome in later days. Naturally, too, the poorer classes 
copied after the aristocracy, and thus the custom became 
universal along the Southern coast. As mentioned 
above, there was a Cavalier strain throughout the 
section. As Robert Beverly observed in his History of 
Virginia, written in 1705: " In the time of the rebellion 
in England several good cavalier families went thither 
with their effects, to escape the tyranny of the usurper, 
or acknowledgement of his title." Such people had long 
been accustomed to rather lavish expenditures and 
entertainment, and, as Beverly testifies, they did not 
greatly change their mode of life after reaching America : 

" For their recreation, the plantations, orchards and 
gardens constantly afford them fragrant and delightful 
walks. In their woods and fields, they have an unknown 
variety of vegetables, and other varieties of Nature to 
discover. They have hunting, fishing and fowling, with 
which they entertain themselves an hundred ways. 
There is the most good nature and hospitality practised 
in the world, both towards friends and strangers; but 
the worst of it is, this generosity is attended now and 
then with a little too much intemperance. 

" The inhabitants are very courteous to travelers, 
who need no other recommendation but the being human 
creatures. A stranger has no more to do, but to enquire 
upon the road, where any gentleman or good house- 
keeper lives, and there he may depend upon being 
received with hospitality. This good nature is so 
general among their people, that the gentry, when they 
go abroad, order their principal servant to entertain all 
visitors, with everything the plantation affords. And 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 179 

the poor planters, who have but one bed, will very often 
sit up, or lie upon a form or couch all night, to make 
room for a weary traveler, to repose himself after his 
journey. ..." 

Many other statements, not only by Americans, but 
by cultured foreigners might be presented to show the 
charm of colonial life in Virginia. The Marquis de 
Chastellux, one of the French Revolutionary generals, 
a man who had mingled in the best society of Europe, 
was fascinated with the evidence of luxury, culture, and 
feminine refinement of the Old Dominion, and declared 
that Virginia women might become excellent musicians 
if the fox-hounds would stop baying for a little while 
each day. He met several ladies who sang well and 
" played on the harpsichord "; he was dehghted at the 
number of excellent French and English authors he 
found in the libraries; and, above all, he was surprised 
at the natural dignity of many of the older men and 
women, and at the evidences of domestic fehcity found 
in the great homes. 

//. Splendor in the Southern Home 
Of these vast, rambling mansions numerous descrip- 
tions have been handed down to our day. The follow- 
ing, written in 1774, is an account recorded in his diary 
by the tutor, Philip Fithian, in the family of a Virginia 
planter : 

" Mr. Carter has chosen for the place of his habitation 
a high spot of Ground in Westmoreland County . . . 
where he has erected a large, Elegant House, at a vast 
expense, which commonly goes by the name of Nomini- 
Hall. This House is built with Brick but the bricks 



180 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

have been covered with strong hme Mortar, so that the 
building is now perfectly white (erected in 1732). It is 
seventy-six Feet long from East to West; & forty-four 
wide from North to South, two stories high; ... It 
has five stacks of Chimneys, tho' two of these serve 
only for ornaments. 

" There is a beautiful Jutt, on the South side, eighteen 
feet long, & eight Feet deep from the wall which is sup- 
ported by three pillars — On the South side, or front, 
in the upper story are four Windows each having twenty- 
four Lights of Glass. In the lower story are two Win- 
dows each having forty-two Lights of Glass, & two Doors 
each having Sixteen Lights. At the east end the upper 
story has three windows each with 18 lights; & below 
two windows both with eighteen lights & a door with 
nine. . . . 

" The North side I think is the most beautiful of all. 
In the upper story is a row of seven windows with 18 
lights a piece; and below six windows, with the like 
number of lights; besides a large Portico in the middle, 
at the sides of which are two windows each with eighteen 
lights. ... At the west end are no Windows — The 
number of lights in all is five hundred, & forty nine. 
There are four Rooms on a Floor, disposed of in the 
following manner. Below is a dining Room where we 
usually sit; the second is a dining-room for the Children; 
the third is Mr. Carters study, and the fourth is a Bali- 
Room thirty Feet long. Above stairs, one room is for 
Mr. & Mrs. Carter; the second for the young Ladies; 
& the other two for occasional Company. As this 
House is large, and stands on a high piece of Land it 
may be seen a considerable distance." 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 181 

Nor were these houses less elegantly furnished than 
magnificently built. Chastellux was astounded at the 
taste and richness of the ornaments and permanent 
fixtures, and declared of the Nelson Home at Yorktown 
that " neither European taste nor luxury was excluded; 
a chimney piece and some bas-reliefs of very fine marble 
exquisitely sculptured were particularly admired." As 
Fisher says of such mansions, in his interesting Men, 
Women and Manners in Colonial Times: " They were 
crammed from cellar to garret with all the articles of 
pleasure and convenience that were produced in Eng- 
land: Russia leather chairs, Turkey worked chairs, 
enormous quantities of damask napkins and table- 
linen, silver and pewter ware, candle sticks of brass, 
silver and pewter, flagons, dram-cups, beakers, tankards, 
chafing-dishes, Spanish tables, Dutch tables, valuable 
clocks, screens, and escritoires."^ 

///. Social Activities 

In such an environment a gay social life was eminently 
fitting, and how often we may read between the lines of 
old letters and diaries the story of such festive occa- 
sions. For instance, scan the records of the life of Eliza 
Pinckney, and her beautiful daughter, one of the belles 
of Charleston, and note such bits of information as the 
following : 

" Governor Lyttelton will wait on the ladies at Bel- 
mont " (the home of Mrs. Pinckney and her daughter) ; 
" Mrs. Drayton begs the pleasure of your company to 
spend a few days"; "Lord and Lady Charles Mon- 
tague's Compts to Mrs. and Miss Pinckney, and if it is 

« Page 89. 



182 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

agreeable to them shall be glad of their Company at the 
Lodge"; "Mrs. Glen presents her Compts to Mrs. 
Pinckney and Mrs. Hyrne, hopes they got no Cold, and 
begs Mrs. Pinckney will detain Mrs. Hyrne from going 
home till Monday, and that they (together with Miss 
Butler and the 3 young Lady's) will do her the favour to 
dine with her on Sunday." (Mr. Pinckney had been 
dead for several years. )^ 

And again, in a letter written in her girlhood to her 
brother about 1743, Eliza Pinckney says of the people of 
Carolina: " The people in genl are hospitable and honest, 
and the better sort add to these a polite gentile behaviour. 
The poorer sort are the most indolent people in the world 
or they could never be wretched in so plentiful a country 
as this. The winters here are very fine and pleasant, 
but 4 months in the year is extreamly disagreeable, 
excessive hott, much thunder and lightening and muska- 
toes and sand flies in abundance. 

" Crs Town, the Metropohs, is a neat, pretty place. 
The inhabitants polite and live in a very gentile manner. 
The streets and houses regularly built — the ladies and 
gentlemen gay in their dress; upon the whole you will 
find as many agreeable people of both sexes for the size 
of the place as almost any where. . . ."^ 

Companies great enough to give the modern house- 
wife nervous prostration were often entertained at 
dinners, while many of the planters kept such open 
house that no account was kept of the number of guests 
who came and went daily and who commonly made 
themselves so much at home that the host or hostess 

' Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 227. 
8 Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 13. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 183 

often scarcely disturbed them throughout their entire 
stay. Several years after the Revolution George Wash- 
ington recorded in his diary the surprising fact that for 
the first time since he and Martha Washington had 
returned to Mount Vernon, they had dined alone. As 
Wharton says in her Martha Washington, " Warm 
hearted, open-handed hospitality was constantly exercised 
at Mount Vernon, and if the master humbly recorded 
that, although he owned a hundred cows, he had some- 
times to buy butter for his family, the entry seems to 
have been made in no spirit of fault finding." Of this 
same Washingtonian hospitality one French traveller, 
Brissot de Warville, wrote: " Every thing has an air of 
simplicity in his [Washington's] house; his table is good, 
but not ostentatious; and no deviation is seen from 
regularity and domestic economy. Mrs. Washington 
superintends the whole, and joins to the qualities of an 
excellent housewife that simple dignity which ought to 
characterize a woman whose husband has acted the 
greatest part on the theater of human affairs; while she 
possesses that amenity and manifests that attention to 
strangers which renders hospitality so charming."^ 

With such hospitality there seemed to go a certain 
elevation in the social Hfe of Virginia and South Carolina 
entirely different from the corrupt conditions found in 
Louisiana in the seventeenth century, and also in con- 
trast with the almost cautious manner in which the New 
Englanders of the same period tasted pleasure. In 
those magnificent Southern houses — Quincey speaks of 
one costing £8000, a sum fully equal in modern buying 
capacity to $100,000 — there was much stately dancing, 

'Wharton: Martha Was)iington, p. 166. 



184 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

almost an extreme form of etiquette, no little genuine 
art, and music of exceptional quality. The Charleston 
St. Cecilia Society, organized in 1737, gave numerous 
amateurs opportunities to hear and perform the best 
musical compositions of the day, and its annual concerts, 
continued until 1822, were scarcely ever equalled else- 
where in America, during the same period. In the 
aristocratic circles formal balls were frequent, and were 
exceedingly brilliant affairs. Eliza Pinckney, describ- 
ing one in 1742, says: '* . . . The Govr gave the Gentn 
a very gentile entertainment at noon, and a ball at night 
for the ladies on the Kings birthnight, at wch was a 
Crowded Audience of Gentn and ladies. I danced a 
minuet with yr old acquaintance Capt Brodrick who was 
extreamly glad to see one so nearly releated to his old 
friend. . . ."^ Ravenel in her Eliza Pinckney recon- 
structs from her notes a picture of one of those dignified 
balls or fetes in the olden days: 

'* On such an occasion as that referred to, a reception 
for the young bride who had just come from her own 
stately home of Ashley Hall, a few miles down the river, 
the guests naturally wore all their braveries. Their 
dresses, brocade, taffety, lute-string, etc., were well 
drawn up through their pocket holes. Their sHppers, 
to match their dresses, had heels even higher and more 
unnatural than our own. . . . With bows and courtesies, 
and by the tips of their fingers, the ladies were led up the 
high stone steps to the wide hall, . . . and then up the 
stair case with its heavy carved balustrade to the panelled 
rooms above. . . . Then, the last touches put to the 
heads (too loftily piled with cushions, puffs, curls, and 

8 Ravenel: E. Pinckney, p. 20. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 185 

lappets, to admit of being covered with anything more 
than a veil or a hood). . . . Gay would be the feast. . . . 

" The old silver, damask and India china still remain- 
ing show how these feasts were set out. . . . Miss Lucas 
has already told us something of what the country could 
furnish in the way of good cheer, and we may be sure 
that venison and turkey from the forest, ducks from the 
rice fields, and fish from the river at their doors, were 
there. . . . Turtle came from the West Indies, with 
' saffron and negroe pepper, very delicate for dressing 
it.' Rice and vegetables were in plenty — terrapins 
in every pond, and Carolina hams proverbially fine. 
The desserts were custards and creams (at a wedding 
always bride cake and floating island), jellies, syllabubs, 
puddings and pastries. . . . They had port and claret 
too . . . and for suppers a delicious punch called 
' shrub,' compounded of rum, pineapples, lemons, etc., 
not to be commended by a temperance society. 

" The dinner over, the ladies withdrew, and before 
very long the scraping of the fiddlers would call the 
gentlemen to the dance, — pretty, graceful dances, the 
minuet, stately and gracious, which opened the ball; 
and the country dance, fore-runner of our Virginia reel, 
in which every one old, and young joined."^ 

It is httle wonder that Eliza Pinckney, upon returning 
from just such a social function to take up once more the 
heavy routine of managing three plantations, complained: 
" At my return thither every thing appeared gloomy and 
lonesome, I began to consider what attraction there was 
in this place that used so agreeably to soothe my pensive 
humor, and made me indifferent to everything the gay 

« Pages 46-48. 



186 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

world could boast; but I found the change not in the 
place but in myself."^" 

The domestic happiness found in these plantation 
mansions was apparently ideal. Families were generally 
large; there was much inter-marriage, generation after 
generation, within the aristocratic circle; and thus 
everybody was related to everybody. This gave an 
excuse for an amount of informal and prolonged visiting 
that would be almost unpardonable in these more 
practical and in some ways more economical days. 
There was considerable correspondence between the 
families, especially among the women, and by means of 
the numerous references to visits, past or to come, we 
may picture the friendly cordial atmosphere of the time. 
Washington, for instance, records that he *' set off with 
Mrs. Washington and Patsy, Mr. W[arner] Washington 
and wife, Mrs. Bushrod and Miss Washington, and Mr. 
Magowen for ' Towelston,' in order to stand for Mr. B. 
Fairfax's third son, which I did with my wife, Mr. 
Warner Washington and his lady." " Another day he 
returns from attending to the purchase of western lands 
to find that Col. Bassett, his wife and children, have 
arrived during his absence, ' Billy and Nancy and Mr. 
Warner Washington being here also.' The next day 
the gentlemen go a-hunting together, Mr. Bryan Fairfax 
having joined them for the hunt and the dinner that 
followed." 

Again, we find Mrs. Washington writing, with her 
usual unique spelling and sentence structure, to her 
sister : 

'"Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 49. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 187 

" Mt. Vernon Aug 28 1762. 

"MY DEAR NANCY, — I had the pleasure to receive 
your kind letter of the 25 of July just as I was setting 
out on a visit to Mr. Washington in Westmoreland 
where I spent a weak very agreabley I carried my little 
patt with me and left Jackey at home for a trial to 
see how well I could stay without him though we ware 
gone but won fortnight I was quite impatient to get 
home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a 
noise out, I thought thair was a person sent for me. . . . 

" We are daly expect (ing) the kind laydes of Maryland 
to visit us. I must begg you will not lett the fright 
you had given you prevent you comeing to see me again 
— If I coud leave my children in as good Care as you 
can I would never let Mr. W — n come down without 
me — Please to give my love to Miss Judy and your 
little babys and make my best comphments to Mr. 
Bassett and Mrs. Dawson. 

" I am with sincere regard 

" dear sister 
" yours most affectionately 

'' MARTHA WASHINGTON."" 

Because of the lack of good roads and the apparently 
great distances, the mere matter of travelling was far 
more important in social activities than is the case in 
our day of break-neck speed. A ridiculously small 
number of miles could be covered in a day; there were 
frequent stops for rest and refreshment; and the occu- 
pants of the heavy, rumbling coaches had ample op- 
portunity for observing the scenery and the peculiarities 

" Wharton: Martha Washiimian, p. 56. 



188 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

of the territory traversed. Martha Washington's grand- 
son has left an account of her journey from Virginia to 
New York, and recounts how one team proved balky, 
delayed the travellers two hours, and thus upset all their 
calculations. But the kindness of those they met easily 
offset such petty irritations as stubborn horses and 
slow coaches. Note these lines from the account: 

" We again set out for Major Snowden's where we 
arrived at 4 o'clock in the evening. The gate (was) 
hung between 2 trees which were scarcely wide enough to 
admit it. We were treated with great hospitality and 
civility by the major and his wife who were plain people 
and made every effort to make our stay as agreeable as 
possible. 

'' May 19th. This morning was lowering and looked 
like rain — we were entreated to stay all day but to no 
effect we had made our arrangements & it was impos- 
sible. . . . Majr Snowden accompanied us 10 or a dozen 
miles to show a near way and the best road. . . . We 
proceeded as far as Spurriors ordinary and there re- 
freshed ourselves and horses. . . . Mrs. Washington 
shifted herself here, expecting to be met by numbers of 
gentlemen out of B — re — (Baltimore) in which time 
we had everything in reddiness, the carriage, horses, 
etc., all at the door in waiting."^^ 

The story of that journey, now made in a few hours, 
is filled with interesting light upon the ways of the day : — 
the numerous accidents to coaches and horses, the dan- 
gers of crossing rivers on flimsy ferries, the hospitality of 
the people, who sent messengers to insist that the party 
should stop at the various homes, the strange mingling 

'2 Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 186. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 189 

of the uncouth, the totally wild, and the highly civilized 
and cultured. Probably at no other time in the world's 
history could so many stages of man's progress and con- 
quest of nature be seen simultaneously as in America 
of the eighteenth century. 

IV. New England Social Life 
Turning to New England, we find of course that under 
the early Puritan regime amusements were decidedly 
under the ban. We have noted under the discussion of 
the homie the strictness of New England views, and how 
this strictness influenced every phase of public and 
private life. Indeed, at this time life was largely a 
preparation for eternity, and the ethical demands of 
the day gave man an abnormally tender and sensitive 
conscience. When Nathaniel Mather declared in ma- 
ture years that of all his manifold sins none so stuck upon 
him as that, when a boy, he whittled on the Sabbath day, 
and did it behind the door — "a great reproach to 
God " — he was but illustrating the strange atmos- 
phere of fear, reverence, and narrowness of his era. 

And yet, those earlier settlers of Plymouth and Boston 
were a kindly, simple-hearted, good-natured people. 
It is evident from Judge Sewall's Diary that everybody 
in a community knew everybody else, was genuinely 
interested in everyone's welfare, and was always ready 
with a helping hand in days of affliction and sorrow. 
All were drawn together by common dangers and com- 
mon ties; it was aa excellent example of true community 
interest and co-operation. This genuine solicitude 
for others, this desire to know how other sections were 
getting along, this natural curiosity to inquire about 



190 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

other people's health, defenses against common clangers, 
and advancement in agriculture, trade and manufactur- 
ing, led to a form of inquisitiveness that astonished and 
angered foreigners. Late in the eighteenth century even 
Americans began to notice this proverbial Yankee trait. 
Samuel Peters, writing in 1781 in his General History of 
Connecticut, said: "After a short aquaintance they 
become very familiar and inquisitive about news. 
* Who are you, whence come you, where going, what is 
your business, and what your rehgion? ' They do not 
consider these and similar questions as impertinent, 
and consequently expect a civil answer. When the 
stranger has satisfied their curiosity they will treat him 
with all the hospitality in their power." 

Fisher in his Men, Women, & Manners in Colonial 
Times declares: '' A . . . Virginian who had been much 
in New England in colonial times used to relate that as 
soon as he arrived at an inn he always summoned the 
master and mistress, the servants and all the strangers 
who were about, made a brief statement of his life and 
occupation, and having assured everybody that they 
could know no more, asked for his supper; and Frankhn, 
when travelling in New England, was obliged to adopt 
the same plan."^^ 

Old Judge Sewall, a typical specimen of the better 
class Puritan, certainly possessed a kindly curiosity 
about his neighbors' welfare, and many are his references 
to visits to the sick or dying, or to attendance at funerals. 
While there were no great balls nor brilliant fetes, as 
in the South, his Diary emphatically proves that there 
were many pleasant visits and dinner parties and a great 

" Page 205. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 191 

deal of the inevitable courting. Thus, we note the fol- 
lowing: " Tuesday, January 12. I dine at the Gover- 
nour's: where Mr. West, Governour of Carolina, Capt. 
Black well, his Wife and Daughter, Mr. Morgan, his 
Wife and Daughter Mrs. Brown, Mr. Eliakim Hutchin- 
son and Wife. . . . Mrs. Mercy sat not down, but came 
in after dinner well dressed and saluted the two Daugh- 
ters. Madm Bradstreet and Blackwell sat at the upper 
end together, Governour at the lower end."^* 

" Dec. 20, 1676 . . . Mrs. Usher lyes very sick of an 
Inflammation in the Throat. . . . Called at her House 
coming home to tell Mr. Fosterling's Receipt, i. e. A 
Swallows Nest (the inside) stamped and applied to the 
throat outwardly. "^^ 

" Satterday, June 5th, 1686. I rode to Newbury, 
to see my little Hull, and to keep out of the way of the 
Artillery Election, on which day eat Strawberries and 
Cream with Sister Longfellow at the Falls. "^^ 

" Monday, July 11. I hire Ems's Coach in the 
Afternoon, wherein Mr. Hez. Usher and his wife, and 
Mrs. Bridget her daughter, my Self and wife ride to 
Roxbury, visit Mr. Dudley, and Mr. Ehot, the Father 
who blesses them. Go and sup together at the Gray- 
hound Tavern with boil'd Bacon and rost Fowls. Came 
home between 10 and 11 brave Moonshine, were hinder'd 
an hour or two by Mr. Usher, else had been in good 
season. "1'' 

" Thorsday, Oct. 6, 1687 . . . On my Unkle's Horse 
after Diner, I carry my wife to see the Farm, where we 

"Vol. I, p. 116. 
"Vol. I, p. 31. 
'« Vol. I, p. 143. 
"Vol. I. p. 171. 



192 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

eat Aples and drank Cider. Shew'd her the Meeting- 
house. ... In the Morn Oct. 7th Unkle and Goodm. 
Brown come our way home accompanying of us. Set 
out after nine, and got home before three. Call'd no 
where by the way. Going out, our Horse fell down at 
once upon the Neck, and both fain to scramble off, yet 
neither receiv'd any hurt. . . ."'^ 

Nearly a century later Judge Pynchon records a 
social life similar, though apparently much more liberal 
in its views of what might enter into legitimate enter- 
tainment: 

" Saturday, July 7, 1784. Dine at Mr. Wickkham's, 
with Mrs. Browne and her two daughters. ... In the 
afternoon Mrs. Browne and I, the Captain, Blaney, and 
a number of gentlemen and ladies, ride, and some walk 
out, some to Malbon's Garden, some to Redwood's, 
several of us at both; are entertained very agreeably at 
each place; tea, coffee, cakes, syllabub, and English 
beer, etc., punch and wine. We return at evening; 
hear a song of Mrs. Shaw's, and are highly entertained; 
the ride, the road, the prospects, the gardens, the 
company, in short, everything was most agreeable, most 
entertaining — was admirable."^^ 

" Thursday, October 25, 1787 . . . Mrs. Pynchon, 
Mrs. Orne, and Betsy spend the evening at Mrs. Ander- 
son's; musick and dancing."^" 

" Monday, November 10, 1788 . . . Mrs. Gibbs, 
Curwen, Mrs. Paine, and others spend the evening here, 
also Mr. Gibbs, at cards. "^i 

>8Vol. I, p. 191. 
i» Diary, p. 189. 
20 Diary, p. 289. 
^^ Diary, p. 321. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 193 

" Friday, April 19 1782. Some rain. A concert at 
night; musicians from Boston, and dancing."^^ 

" June 24, Wednesday, 1778. Went with Mrs. Orne 
[his daughter] to visit Mr. Sewall and lady at Manchester, 
and returned on Thursday. "^^ 

V. Funerals as Recreations 
Even toward the close of the eighteenth century, 
however, lecture days and fast days were still rather 
conscientiously observed, and such occasions were as 
much a part of New England social activities as were 
balls and receptions in Virginia. Judge Pynchon makes 
frequent note of such religious meetings; as, — "April 
25, Thursday, 1782. Fast Day. Service at Church, 
A. M.; none, P. M."^* "Thursday, July 20, 1780. 
Fast Day; clear."" Funerals and weddings formed no 
small part of the social interests of the day, and indeed 
the former apparently called for much more display and 
formality than was ever the case in the South. There 
seems to have been among the Puritans a certain grim 
pleasure in attending a burial service, and in the absence 
of balls, dancing, and card playing, the importance of 
the New England funeral in early social life can scarcely 
be overestimated. During the time of Sewall the burial 
was an occasion for formal invitation cards; gifts of 
gloves, rings, and scarfs were expected for those attend- 
ing; and the air of depression so common in a twentieth 
century funeral was certainly not conspicuous. It may 
have been because death was so common; for the death 

" Diary, p. 119. 
2' Diary, p. 54. 
^* Diary, p. 121. 
^ Diary, p. 69. 



194 Woman s Life in Colonial Days 

rate was frightfully high in those good old days, and in 
a community so thinly populated burials were so ex- 
tremely frequent that every one from childhood was 
accustomed to the sight of crepe and coffin. Man is a 
gregarious creature and craves the assembly, and as 
church meetings, weddings, executions, and funerals 
were almost the sole opportunities for social intercourse, 
the flocking to the house of the dead was but normal and 
natural. Sewall seems to have been in constant attend- 
ance at such gatherings: 

" Midweek, March 23, 1714-5. Mr. Addington 
buried from the Council-Chamber ... 20 of the 
Council were assisting, it being the day for Appointing 
Officers. All had Scarvs. Bearers Scarvs, Rings, 
Escutcheons. . . ."^^ 

" My Daughter is Inter'd. . . . Had Gloves and 
Rings of 2 pwt and ^2. Twelve Ministers of the Town 
had Rings, and two out of Town. . . ."^^ 

" Tuesday, 18, Novr. 1712. Mr. Benknap buried. 
Joseph was invited by Gloves, and had a scarf given him 
there, which is the first. "^^ 

" Feria sexta, April 8, 1720. Govr. Dudley is buried 
in his father Govr. Dudley's Tomb at Roxbury. Boston 
and Roxbury Regiments were under Arms, and 2 or 3 
Troops. . . . Scarves, Rings, Gloves, Escutcheons. . . . 
Judge Dudley in a mourning Cloak led the Widow; 
. . . Were very many People, spectators out of windows, 
on Fences and Trees, like Pigeons. . . ."^^ 

«• Vol. III. p. 43. 
"Vol. Ill, p. 341. 
>» Vol. II, p. 367. 
M Vol. Ill, p. 7. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 195 

"July 25th, 1700. Went to the Funeral of Mrs. 
Sprague, being invited by a good pair of Gloves. "^° 

This comment is made upon the death of Judge 
Sewall's father: 

" May 24th. . . . My Wife provided Mourning upon 
my Letter by Severs. All went in mourning save 
Joseph, who staid at home because his Mother lik'd not 
his cloaths. . . ."^^ 

" Febr. 1, 1700. Waited on the Lt. Govr. and pre- 
sented him with a Ring in Remembrance of my dear 
Mother, saying. Please to accept in the Name of one of 
the Company your Honor is preparing to go."^^ 

" July 15, 1698. ... On death of John Ive. ... I 
was not at his Funeral. Had Gloves sent me, but the 
knowledge of his notoriously wicked life made me sick 
of going . . . and so I staid at home, and by that 
means lost a Ring. . . ."^^ 

" Friday, Feb. 10, 1687-8. Between 4 and 5 I went 
to the Funeral of the Lady Andros, having been invited 
by the Clerk of the South Company. Between 7 and 8 
Lechus (Lynchs? i. e. links or torches) illuminating the 
cloudy air. The Corps was carried into the Herse drawn 
by Six Horses. The Souldiers making a Guard from 
the Governour's House down the Prison Lane to the 
South Meeting-house, there taken out and carried in at 
the western dore, and set in the Alley before the pulpit, 
with Six Mourning Women by it. . . . Was a great 
noise and clamor to keep people out of the House, that 
might not rush in too soon. ... On Satterday Feb. 11, 

50 Vol. II. p. 14. 
31 Vol. II, p. 20. 
»2 Vol. II, p. 32. 
"Vol. I, p. 481. 



196 Woman s Life in Colonial Days 

the mourning cloth of the Pulpit is taken off and given 
to Mr. Willard."34 

"Satterday, Nov. 12, 1687. About 5 P. M. Mrs. 
Elisa Saffen is entombed. . . . Mother not invited. "^^ 

In the earlier days of the New England colonies the 
gift of scarfs, gloves, and rings for such services was 
almost demanded by social etiquette; but before Judge 
Sewall's death the custom was passing. The following 
passages from his Diary illustrate the change : 

" Deer. 20, feria sexta. . . . Had a letter brought 
me of the Death of Sister Shortt. . . . Not having other 
Mourning I look'd out a pair of Mourning Gloves. An 
hour or 2 later Mr. Sergeant, sent me and Wife Gloves; 
mine are so little I can't wear them."^^ 

" August 7r 16, 1721. Mrs. Frances Webb is buried, 
who died of the Small Pox. I think this is the first 
public Funeral without Scarves. . . ."^^ 

The Puritans were not the only colonists to celebrate 
death with pomp and ceremony; but no doubt the cus- 
tom was far more nearly universal among them than 
among the New Yorkers or Southerners. Still, in New 
Amsterdam a funeral was by no means a simple or dreary 
affair; feasting, exchange of gifts, and display were 
conspicuous elements at the burial of the wealthy or 
aristocratic. The funeral of William Lovelace in 1689 
may serve as an illustration: 

" The room was draped with mourning and adorned 
with the escutcheons of the family. At the head of the 
body was a pall of death's heads, and above and about the 

31 Vol. I, p. 202. 
36 Vol. I. p. 195. 
3» Vol. II. p. 175. 
"Vol. III. p. 292. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 197 

hearse was a canopy richly embroidered, from the centre 
of which hung a garland and an hour-glass. At the 
foot was a gilded coat of arms, four feet square, and near 
by were candles and fumes which were kept continually 
burning. At one side was placed a cupboard containing 
plate to the value of £200. The funeral procession was 
led by the captain of the company to which deceased 
belonged, followed by the ' preaching minister,' two others 
of the clergy, and a squire bearing the shield. Before 
the body, which was borne by six ' gentlemen bachelors/ 
walked two maidens in white silk, wearing gloves and 
' Cyprus scarves,' and behind were six others similarly 
attired, bearing the pall. . . . Until ten o'clock at night 
wines, sweet-meats, and biscuits were served to the 
mourners. "^^ 

VI. Trials and Executions 
Whenever normal pleasures are withdrawn from a 
community that community will undoubtedly indulge 
in abnormal ones. We should not be surprised, there- 
fore, to find that the Puritans had an itching for the 
details of the morbid and the sensational. The nature 
of revelations seldom, if ever, grew too repulsive for their 
hearing, and if the case were one of adultery or incest, 
it was sure to be well aired. There was a possibility that 
if an offender made a thorough-going confession before 
the entire congregation or community, he might escape 
punishment, and on such occasions it would seem that 
the congregation sat listening closely and drinking in 
all the hideous facts and minutiae. The good fathers in 
their diaries and chronicles not only have mentioned the 

'* Andrews: Colonial Self-Governmenl, p. 302, A7nerican Nation Series. 



198 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

crimes and the criminals, but have enumerated and 
described such details as fill a modern reader with dis- 
gust. In fact, Winthrop in his History of New Eiigland 
has cited examples and circumstances so revolting that 
it is impossible to quote them in a modern book intended 
for the general public, and yet Winthrop himself seemed 
to see nothing wrong in offering cold-bloodedly the exact 
data. Such indulgence in the morbid or risque was not, 
however, limited to the New England colonists; it was 
entirely too common in other sections; but among the 
Puritan writers it seemed to offer an outlet for emotions 
that could not be dissipated otherwise in legitimate social 
activities. 

To-day the spectacle or even the very thought of a 
legal execution is so horrible to many citizens that the 
state hedges such occasions about with the utmost 
privacy and absence of publicity; but in the seventeenth 
century the Puritan seems to have found considerable 
secret pleasure in seeing how the victim faced eternity. 
Condemned criminals were taken to church on the day 
of execution, and there the clergyman, dispensing with 
the regular order of service, frequently consumed several 
hours thundering anathema at the wretch and describing 
to him his awful crime and the yawning pit of hell in 
which even then Satan and his imps were preparing 
tortures. If the doomed man was able to face all this 
without flinching, the audience went away disappointed, 
feeling that he was hard-hearted, stubborn, " predes- 
tined to be damned "; but if with loud lamentation and 
wails of terror he confessed his sin and his fear of God's 
vengeance, his hearers were pleased and edified at the 
fall of one more of the devil's agents. Often times a 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 199 

similar scene was enacted at the gallows, where a host 
of men, women, and even children crowded close to see 
and hear all. Judge Sewall has recorded for us just such 
an event: 

" Feria Sexta, June 30, 1704. . . . After Diner, 
about 3 P. M. I went to see the Execution. . . . Many 
were the people that saw upon Bloughton's Hill. But 
when I came to see how the River was cover'd with 
People, I was amazed! Some say there were 100 Boats, 
150 Boats and Canoes, saith Cousin Moody of York. 
He told them. Mr. Cotton Mather came with Capt. 
Quelch and six others for Execution from the Prison to 
Scarlet's Wharf, and from thence. . . . When the 
scaffold was hoisted to a due height, the seven Male- 
factors went up; Mr. Mather pray'd for them standing 
upon the Boat. Ropes were all fasten'd to the Gallows 
(save King, who was Repriev'd). When the Scaffold 
was let to sink, there was such a Schreech of the Women 
that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the 
Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was 
sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place. "^^ 

This also from the kindly judge indicates the interest 
in the last service for the condemned one: 

" Thursday, March 11, 1685-6. Persons crowd much 
into the Old Meeting-House by reason of James Morgan 
. . . and before I got thither a crazed woman cryed 
the Gallery of Meetinghouse broke, which made the 
people rush out, with great Consternation, a great part 
of them, but were seated again. . . . Morgan was turned 
off about }'2 hour past five. The day very comfortable, 
but now 9 o'clock rains and has done a good while. . . . 

" Diary. Vol. II, p. 109. 



200 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Mr. Cotton Mather accompanied James Morgan to the 
place of Execution, and prayed with him there. "^^ 

It would seem that the Puritan woman might have 
used her influence by refusing to attend such assemblies. 
Let us not, however, be too severe on her; perhaps, if 
such a confession were scheduled for a day in our twen- 
tieth century the confessor might not face empty seats, 
or simply seats occupied by men only. In our day, 
moreover, with its multitude of amusements, there would 
be far less excuse; for the monotony of life in the old 
days must have set nerves tingling for something just a 
little unusual, and such barbarous occasions were among 
the few opportunities. 

Gradually amusements of a more normal type began 
to creep into the New England fold. Judge Sewall 
makes the following comment: " Tuesday, Jan. 7, 1719. 
The Govr has a ball at his own House that lasts to 3 in 
the Morn;"*i but he does not make an additional note 
of his attending — sure proof that he did not go. Doubt- 
less the hour of closing seemed to him scandalous. Then, 
too, early in the eighteenth century the dancing master 
invaded Boston, and doubtless many of the older mem- 
bers of the Puritan families were shocked at the alacrity 
with which the younger folk took to this sinful art. 
It must have been a genuine satisfaction to Sewall to 
note in 1685 that " Francis Stepney, the Dancing Master, 
runs away for Debt. Several Attachments out after 
him. "^2 But scowl at it as the older people did, they had 
to recognize the fact that by 1720 large numbers of New 
England children were learning the graceful, old-fash- 

<» Diary, Vol. I. p. 125. 
<^ Diary, Vol. II, p. 158. 
^^ Diary, Vol. I, p. 145. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 201 

ioned dances of the day, and that, too, with the consent 
of the parents. 

VII . Special " Social " Days 
" Lecture Day," generally on Thursday, was another 
means of breaking the monotony of New England 
colonial existence. It resembled the Sabbath in that 
there was a meeting and a sermon at the church, and 
very little work done either on farm or in town. Com- 
monly banns were published then, and condemned 
prisoners preached to or at. For instance, Sewall 
notes: "Feb. 23, 1719-20. Mr. Cooper comes in, and 
sits with me, and asks that he may be published; Next 
Thorsday w?s talk'd of, at last, the first Thorsday in 
March was consented to.""*^ On Lecture Day, as well 
as on the Sabbath, the beautiful custom was followed 
of posting a note or bill in the house of God, requesting 
the prayers of friends for the sick or afflicted, and many 
a fervent petition arose to God on such occasions. 
Several times Sewall refers to such requests, and fre- 
quently indeed he felt the need of such prayers for him- 
self and his. 

" Satterday, Augt. 15. Hambleton and my Sister 
Watch (his eldest daughter was ill). I get up before 2 
in the Morning of the L(ecture) Day, and hearing an 
earnest expostulation of my daughter, I went down and 
finding her restless, call'd up my wife. ... I put up 
this Note at the Old (First Church) and South, ' Prayers 
are desired for Hanah Sewall as drawing Near her 
end.' ""* 

*' Diary, Vol. Ill, p. 244. 
"Diary, Vol. Ill, p. 341. 



202 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

And when his wife was ill, he wrote: " Oct. 17, 1717. 
Thursday, I asked my wife whether 'twere best for me to 
go to Lecture: She said, I can't tell: so I staid at home. 
Put up a Note. ... It being my Son's Lecture, and I 
absent, twas taken much notice of."^^ 

As the editor of the famous Diary comments: " Judge 
Sewall very seldom allowed any private trouble or 
sorrow, and he never allowed any matter of private 
business, to prevent his attendance upon ' Meeting,' 
either on the Lord's Day, or the Thursday Lecture. 
On this day, on account of the alarming illness of his 
wife — which proved to be fatal — he remains with 
her, furnishing his son, who was to preach, with a ' Note ' 
to be ' put up,' asking the sympathetic prayers of the 
congregation in behalf of the family. He is touched and 
gratified on learning how much feeHng was manifested 
on the occasion. The incident is suggestive of one of the 
beautiful customs once recognized in all the New Eng- 
land churches, in town and country, where all the mem- 
bers of a congregation, knit together by ties and sympa- 
thies of a common interest, had a share in each other's 
private and domestic experiences of joy and sorrow." 

Such customs added to the social solidarity of the 
people, and gave each New England community a 
neighborliness not excelled in the far more vari-colored 
life of the South. Fast days and days of prayer, observed 
for thanks, for deliverance from some danger or afflic- 
tion, petitions for aid in an hour of impending disaster, 
or even simply as a means of bringing the soul nearer to 
God, were also agencies in the social welfare of the early 
colonists and did much to keep alive community spirit 

*i Diary, Vol. Ill, p. 143. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 203 

and co-operation. Turning again to Sewall, we find 
him recording a number of such special days : 

" Wednesday, Oct. 3rd, 1688. Have a day of Prayer 
at our House; One principal reason as to particular, 
about my going for England. Mr. Willard pray'd and 
preach'd excellently. . . . Intermission. Mr. Allen 
pray'd, and then Mr. Moodey, both very well, then 
3d — 7th verses of the 86th Ps., sung Cambridge Short 
Tune, which I set. . . ."^« 

" Febr. 12. I pray'd God to accept me in keeping a 
privat day of Prayer with Fasting for That and other 
Important Matters: . . . Perfect what is lacking in my 
Faith, and in the faith of my dear Yokefellow. Convert 
my children; especially Samuel and Hanah; Provide 
Rest and Settlement for Hanah; Recover Mary, Save 
Judity, Elisabeth and Joseph: Requite the Labour of 
Love of my Kinswoman, Jane Tappin, Give her health, 
find out Rest for her. Make David a man after thy 
own heart. Let Susan live and be baptised with the Holy 
Ghost, and with fire. . . .""^ 

" Third-day, Augt. 13, 1695. We have a Fast kept in 
our new Chamber. . . ."'*^ 

In New England Thanksgiving and Christmas were 
observed at first only to a very slight extent, and not at 
all with the regularity and ceremony common to-day. 
In the South, Christmas was celebrated without fail 
with much the same customs as those known in " Merrie 
Old England "; but among the earlier Puritans a large 
number frowned upon such special days as inclining 
toward Episcopal and Popish ceremonials, and many a 

" DiaTU, Vol. I. p. 228. 
»' Diary, Vol. II, p. 216. 
*» Diary, Vol. I, p. 410. 



204 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Christmas passed with scarcely a notice. Bradford in 
his so-called Log-Book gives us this description of such 
lack of observance of the day : 

" The day called Christmas Day ye Govr cal'd them 
out to worke (as was used) but ye moste of this new 
company excused themselves, and said yt went against 
their consciences to work on yt day. So ye Govr tould 
them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would 
spare them till they were better informed. So he led 
away ye rest and left them ; but when they came home at 
noon from their work he found them in ye street at play 
openly, some pitching ye bar, and some at stool-ball and 
such like sports. So he went to them and took away 
their implements and tould them it was against his 
conscience that they should play and others work." 

And Sewall doubtless would have agreed with " ye 
Govr "; for he notes: 

" Dec. 25, 1717. Snowy Cold Weather; Shops open 
as could be for the Storm; Hay, wood and all sorts of 
provisions brought to Town."^^ 

" Dec. 25, Friday, 1685. Carts come to Town and 
shops open as is usual. Some somehow observe the day; 
but are vexed I believe that the body of the people 
profane it, and blessed be God no authority yet to 
Compell them to keep it."^" 

" Tuesday, Deer. 25, 1722-3. Shops are open, and 
Carts came to Town with Wood, Hoop-Poles, Hay & 
as at other Times; being a pleasant day, the street was 
fill'd with Carts and Horses. "^^ 

" Midweek, Deer. 25, 1718-9. Shops are open, Hay, 

" Diary, Vol. I, p. 157. 
s" Diary, Vol. I, p. 355. 
M Diary. Vol. III. p. 31G. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 205 

Hoop-poles, Wood, Faggots, Charcole, Meat brought to 
Town."^2 

Nearly a century later all that Judge Pynchon records 
is: 

" Fryday, December 25, 1778. Christmas. Cold 
continued. "^^ 

" Monday, December 25, 1780. Christmas, and 
rainy. Dined at Mr. Wetmore's (his daughter's home) 
with Mr. Goodale and family, John and Patty. Mr. 
Barnard and Prince at church; the music good, and Dr. 
Steward's voice above all."^'* 

All that Sewall has to say about Thanksgiving is: 
" Thorsday, Novr. 25. Public Thanksgiving,"^^ and 
again: " 1714. Novr. 25. Thanks-giving day; very 
cold, but not so sharp as yesterday. My wife was sick, 
fain to keep the Chamber and not be at Diner." 

VIII. Social Restrictions 
Many of the restraints imposed by Puritan law- 
makers upon the ordinary hospitality and cordial over- 
tures of citizens seem ridiculous to a modern reader; but 
perhaps the " fathers in Israel " considered such strict- 
ness essential for the preservation of the saints. Jos- 
selyn, travelling in New England in 1638, observed in 
his Neiv England's Rareties their customs rather keenly, 
criticized rather severely some of their views, and com- 
mended just as heartily some of their virtues. " They 
that are members of their churches have the sacraments 
administered to them, the rest that are out of the pale 

M Dianj, Vol. Ill, p. 394. 
i^ Diary, p. GO. 
M Diary, p. 81. 
» Vol. I. p. 159. 



206 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

as they phrase it are denied it. Many hundred souls 
there be amongst them grown up to men and women's 
estate that were never christened. . . . There are many 
strange women too, (in Solomon's sense), more the pity; 
when a woman hath lost her chastity she hath no more 
to lose. There are many sincere and rehgious people 
amongst them. . . . They have store of children and are 
well accommodated with servants; many hands make 
light work, many hands make a full fraught, but many 
mouths eat up all, as some old planters have experi- 
enced." 

Approximately a century later the keen-eyed Sarah 
Knight visited New Haven, and commented in her 
Journal upon the growing laxity of rules and customs 
among the people of the quaint old town : 

" They are governed by the same laws as we in Boston 
(or little differing), throughout this whole colony of 
Connecticut . . . but a little too much independent in 
their principles, and, as I have been told, were formerly 
in their zeal very rigid in their administrations towards 
such as their laws made offenders, even to a harmless kiss 
or innocent merriment among young people. . . . They 
generally marry very young: the males oftener, as I am 
told, under twenty than above: they generally make 
pubhc weddings, and have a way something singular 
(as they say) in some of them, viz., just before joining 
hands the bride-groom quits the place, who is soon 
followed by the bridesmen, and as it were dragged back 
to duty — being the reverse to the former practice among 
us, to steal mistress bride. . . . 

" They (the country women) generally stand after 
they come in a great while speechless, and sometimes 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 207 

don't say a word till they are asked what they want, 
which I impute to the awe they stand in of the mer- 
chants, who they are constantly almost indebted to; 
and must take that they bring without liberty to choose 
for themselves; but they serve them as well, making the 
merchants stay long enough for their pay. ..." 

But even as late as 1780 Samuel Peters states in his 
General History of Connecticut that he found the restric- 
tions in Connecticut so severe that he was forced to 
state that " dancing, fishing, hunting, skating, and riding 
in sleighs on the ice are all the amusements allowed in 
this colony." 

In Massachusetts for many years in the seventeenth 
century a wife, in the absence of her husband, was not 
allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. 
Naturally such an absurd law was the source of much 
bickering on the part of magistrates, and many were the 
amusing tilts when a wife was not permitted to remain 
with her father, but had to be sent home to her husband, 
or a brother was compelled to leave his own sister's 
house. Of course, we may turn successfully to Sewall's 
Diary for an example: " Mid-week, May 12, 1714, 
Went to Brewster's. The Anchor in the Plain; . . . 
took Joseph Brewster for our guide, and went to Town. 
Essay'd to be quarter'd at Mr. Knight's, but he not being 
at home, his wife refused us."^^ When a judge, himself, 
was refused ordinary hospitality, we may surmise that 
the law was rather strictly followed. But many other 
rules of the day seem just as ridiculous to a modern 
reader. As Weeden in his Economic and Social History 
of New England says of restrictions in 1650: 

M Vol. III. p. 1. 



208 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

" No one could run on the Sabbath day, or walk in 
his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from 
meeting. No one should travel, cook victuals, make 
beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath day. 
No woman should kiss her child on the Sabbath or fast- 
ing day. Whoever brought cards into the dominion 
paid a fine of £5. No one could make minced pies, 
dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music, 
except the drum, trumpet, and jews-harp. 

" None under 21 years, nor any not previously accus- 
tomed to it, shall take tobacco without a physician's 
certificate. No one shall take it publicly in the street, 
or the fields, or the woods, except on a journey of at 
least ten miles, or at dinner. Nor shall any one take it 
in any house in his own town with more than one person 
taking it at the same time."^^ 

We must not, however, reach the conclusion that life 
in old New England was a dreary void as far as pleas- 
ures were concerned. Under the discussion of home 
life we have seen that there were barn-raisings, log- 
rolling contests, quilting and paring bees, and numerous 
other forms of community efforts in which considerable 
levity was countenanced. Earle's Home Life in Colonial 
Days copies an account written in 1757, picturing another 
form of entertainment yet popular in the rural districts: 

" Made a husking Entertainm't. Possibly this leafe 
may last a Century and fall into the hands of some 
inquisitive Person for whose Entertainm't I will inform 
him that now there is a Custom amongst us of making 
an Entertainm't at husking of Indian Corn where to all 
the neighboring Swains are invited and after the Corn is 

«' Vol. I. p. 223. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 209 

finished they like the Hottentots give three Cheers or 
huzza's, but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum 
bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing till 
Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then 
after a hearty Meal about 10 at Night they go to their 
pastimes. "^^ 

IX. Dutch Social Life 

In New York, among the Dutch, social pleasures were, 
of course, much less restricted; indeed their community 
life had the pleasant familiarity of one large family. 
Mrs. Grant in her Memoirs of an American Lady pic- 
tures the almost sylvan scene in the quaint old town, 
and the quiet domestic happiness so evident on every 
hand: 

" Every house had its garden, well, and a little green 
behind; before every door a tree was planted, rendered 
interesting by being co-eval with some beloved member 
of the family; many of their trees were of a prodigious 
size and extraordinary beauty, but without regularity, 
every one planting the kind that best pleased with him, 
or which he thought would afford the most agreeable 
shade to the open portion at his door, which was sur- 
rounded by seats, and ascended by a few steps. It was 
in these that each domestic group was seated in summer 
evenings to enjoy the balmy twihght or the serenely 
clear moon hght. Each family had a cow, fed in a 
common pasture at the end of the town. In the evening 
the herd returned all together . . . with their tinkling 
bells . . . along the wide and grassy street to their 
wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at their master's 

»« Page 136. . . 



210 Woman s Life in Colonial Days 

doors. Nothing could be more pleasing to a simple and 
benevolent mind than to see thus, at one view, all the 
inhabitants of the town, which contained not one very 
rich or very poor, very knowing, or very ignorant, very 
rude, or very polished, individual; to see all these 
children of nature enjoying in easy indolence or social 
intercourse, 

' The cool, the fragrant, and the dusky hour,' 
clothed in the plainest habits, and with minds as undis- 
guised and artless. ... At one door were young ma- 
trons, at another the elders of the people, at a third the 
youths and maidens, gaily chatting or singing together 
while the children played round the trees. "^^ 

With little learning save the knowledge of how to 
enjoy life, under no necessity of pretending to enjoy a 
false culture, conforming to no false values and artifi- 
cialities, these simple-hearted people went their quiet 
round of daily duties, took a normal amount of pleasure, 
and in their old-fashioned way, probably lived more 
than any modern devotee of the Wall Street they knew 
so well. Madam Knight in her Journal comments upon 
them in this fashion: " Their diversion in the winter is 
riding sleighs about three or four miles out of town, 
where they have houses of entertainment at a place called 
the Bowery, and some go to friends' houses, who hand- 
somely treat them. Mr. Burroughs carried his spouse 
and daughter and myself out to one Madam Dowes, a 
gentlewoman that lived at a farm house, who gave us a 
handsome entertainment of five or six dishes, and choice 
beer and metheglin, cider, etc., all of which she said was 
the produce of her farm. I believe we met fifty or sixty 

"Page 33. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 211 

sleighs; they fly with great swiftness, and some are so 
furious that they will turn out of the path for none except 
a loaded cart. Nor do they spare for any diversion the 
place affords, and sociable to a degree, their tables being 
as free to their neighbors as to themselves." 

And Mrs. Grant has this to say of their love of chil- 
ren and flowers — probably the most normal loves in the 
human soul: " Not only the training of children, but of 
plants, such as needed pecuhar care or skill to rear them, 
was the female province. ... I have so often beheld, 
both in town and country, a respectable mistress of a 
family going out to her garden, in an April morning, with 
her great calash, her little painted basket of seeds, and 
her rake over her shoulder to her garden labors. ... A 
woman in very easy circumstances and abundantly 
gentle in form and manner would sow and plant and rake 
incessantly. These fair gardners were also great 
florists."6o 

Doubtless the whole world has heard of that other 
Dutch love — for good things on the table. This 
epicurean trait perhaps has been exaggerated; Mrs. 
Grant herself had her doubts at first; but she, like most 
visitors, soon reahzed that a Dutchman's " tea " was a 
fair banquet. Hear again her own words: 

" They were exceedingly social, and visited each other 
frequently, besides the regular assembling together in 
their porches every evening. 

" If you went to spend a day anywhere, you were 
received in a manner we should think very cold. No 
one rose to welcome you; no one wondered you had not 
come sooner, or apologized for any deficiency in your 

•0 Memoirs: p. 29. 



212 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

entertainment. Dinner, which was very early, was 
served exactly in the same manner as if there were only 
the family. The house was so exquisitely neat and well 
regulated that you could not surprise these people; they 
saw each other so often and so easily that intimates 
made no difference. Of strangers they were shy; not 
by any means of want and hospitality, but from a con- 
sciousness that people who had little to value themselves 
on but their knowledge of the modes and ceremonies of 
polished life disliked their sincerity and despised their 
simplicity. . . . 

" Tea was served in at a very early hour. And here 
it was that the distinction shown to strangers com- 
menced. Tea here was a perfect regale, being served 
up with various sorts of cakes unknown to us, cold 
pastry, and great quantities of sweet meats and pre- 
served fruits of various kinds, and plates of hickory and 
other nuts ready cracked. In all manner of confection- 
ery and pastry these people excelled. "^^ 

To the Puritan this manner of living evidently seemed 
ungodly, and perhaps the citizens of New Amsterdam 
were a trifle lax not only in their appetite for the things 
of this world, but also in their indifference toward the 
Sabbath. As Madam Knight observes in her Journal: 
" There are also Dutch and divers conventicles, as they 
call them, viz., Baptist, Quaker, etc. They are not 
strict in keeping the Sabbath, as in Boston and other 
places where I had been, but seemed to deal with exact- 
ness as far as I see or deal with." 

But the kindly sociableness of these Dutch prevented 
any decidedly vicious tendency among them, and went 

•' Memoirs: p. 53. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 213 

far toward making amends for any real or supposed 
laxity in religious principles. Even as children, this 
social nature was consciously trained among them, and 
so closely did the little ones become attached to one 
another that marriage meant not at all the abrupt change 
and departure from former ways that it is rather com- 
monly considered to mean to-day. Says Mrs. Grant: 

" The children of the town were all divided into 
companies, as they called them, from five or six years of 
age, till they became marriageable. How these com- 
panies first originated or what were their exact regula- 
tions, I cannot say; though I belonging to nine occa- 
sionally mixed with several, yet always as a stranger, 
notwithstanding that I spoke their current language 
fluently. Every company contained as many boys as 
girls. But I do not know that there was any limited 
number; only this I recollect, that a boy and girl of 
each company, who were older, cleverer, or had some 
other pre-eminence above the rest, were called heads of 
the company, and, as such, were obeyed by the others. 
. . . Each company, at a certain time of the year, went 
in a body to gather a particular kind of berries, to the 
hill. It was a sort of annual festival, attended with 
religious punctuality. . . . Every child was permitted 
to entertain the whole company on its birthday, and 
once besides, during the winter and spring. The master 
and mistress of the family always were bound to go from 
home on these occasions, while some old domestic was 
left to attend and watch over them, with an ample 
provision of tea, chocolate, preserved and dried fruits, 
nuts and cakes of various kinds, to which was added 
cider, or a syllabub. . . . The consequence of these 



214 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

exclusive and early intimacies was that, grown up, it was 
reckoned a sort of apostacy to marry out of one's com- 
pany, and indeed it did not often happen. The s;irls, 
from the example of their mothers, rather than any 
compulsion, very early became notable and industrious, 
being constantly employed in knitting stockings and 
making clothes for the family and slaves; they even 
made all the boys' clothes. "^^ 

Childhood in New England meant, as we have seen, a 
good deal of down-right hard toil; in Virginia, for the 
better class child, it meant much dressing in dainty 
clothes, and much care about manners and etiquette; 
but the Dutch childhood and even young manhood 
and womanhood meant an unusual amount of care-free, 
whole-hearted, simple pleasure. There were picnics in 
the summer, nut gatherings in the Autumn, and skating 
and sleighing in the winter. 

" In spring eight or ten of one company, young men 
and maidens, would set out together in a canoe on a kind 
of rural excursion. . . . They went without attendants. 
. . . They arrived generally by nine or ten o'clock. . . . 
The breakfast, a very regular and cheerful one, occupied 
an hour or two; the young men then set out to fish or 
perhaps to shoot birds, and the maidens sat busily down 
to their work. . . . After the sultry hours had been thus 
employed, the boys brought their tribute from the river. 
. . . After dinner they all set out together to gather wild 
strawberries, or whatever fruit was in season ; for it was 
accounted a reproach to come home empty-handed. . . . 

" The young parties, or some times the elder ones, 
who set out on this woodland excursion had no fixed 

62 Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 35. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 215 

destination, . . . when they were tired of going on the 
ordinary road, they turned into the bush, and wherever 
they saw an inhabited spot . . . they went into with 
all the ease of intimacy. . . . The good people, not in 
the least surprised at this intrusion, very calmly opened 
the reserved apartments. . . . After sharing with each 
other their food, dancing or any other amusement that 
struck their fancy succeeded. They sauntered about the 
bounds in the evening, and returned by moonhght. . . . 

" In winter the river . . . formed the principal road 
through the country, and was the scene of all these 
amusements of skating and sledge races common to the 
north of Europe. They used in great parties to visit 
their friends at a distance, and having an excellent 
and hearty breed of horses, flew from place to place over 
the snow or ice in these sledges with incredible rapidity, 
stopping a little while at every house they came to, where 
they were always well received, whether acquainted with 
the owners or not. The night never impeded these 
travellers, for the atmosphere was so pure and serene, 
and the snow so reflected the moon and starlight, that 
the nights exceeded the days in beauty. "^^ 

All this meant so much more for the growth of normal 
children and the creation of a cheerful people than did the 
Puritan attendance at executions and funerals. Those 
quaint old-time Dutch probably did not love children 
any more dearly than did the New Englanders; but 
they undoubtedly made more display of it than did the 
Puritans. " Orphans were never neglected. . . . You 
never entered a house without meeting children. Maid- 
ens, bachelors, and childless married people all adopted 

" Grant: MemoiTS of an American Lady, pp. 55-57. 



216 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

orphans, and all treated them as if they were their 
own."^^ 

Since we have mentioned such subjects as funerals 
and orphans, perhaps it would not be out of place to 
notice the peculiar funeral customs among the Dutch. 
Even a burial was not so dreary an affair with them. 
The following bill of 1763, found among the Schuyler 
papers, gives a hint of the manner in which the service 
was conducted, and perhaps explains why the women 
scarcely ever attended the funeral in the " dead room," 
as it was called, but remained in an upper room, where 
they could at least hear what was said, if they could not 
" partake " of the occasion: 

" Tobacco 2. 

Fonda for Pipes 14s. 

2 casks wine 69 gal. 11. 

12 yds. Cloath 6. 

2 barrels strong beer 3. 

To spice from Dr. Stringer 

To the porters 2s. 

12 yds. Bombazine 5. 17s. 

2 Tammise 1. 

1 Barcelona handkerchief 10s. 

2 pr. black chamois Gloves 
6 yds. crape 

5 ells Black Shalloon 
Paid Mr. Benson his fee for opinion on will £9."^^ 

Certainly the custom of making the funeral as pleasant 
as possible for the visitors had not passed away even as 
late as the days of the Revolution; for during that war 
Tench Tilghman wrote the following description of a 
burial service attended by him in New York City: " This 

" Grant: Memoirs, p. 62. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 217 

morning I attended the funeral of old Mr. Doer. . . . 
This was something in a stile new to me. The Corpse 
was carried to the Grave and interred with out any- 
funeral Ceremony, the Clergy attended. We then 
returned to the home of the Deceased where we found 
many tables set out with Bottles, cool Tankards, Candles, 
Pipes & Tobacco. The Company sat themselves down 
and lighted their Pipes and handed the Bottles & Tank- 
ards pretty briskly. Some of them I think rather too 
much so. I fancy the undertakers had borrowed all the 
silver plate of the neighborhood. Tankards and Candle 
Sticks were all silver plated. "^^ 



X. British Social Influences 

With the increase of the English population New York 
began to depart from its normal, quiet round of social 
life, and entered into far more flashy, but far less health- 
ful forms of pleasure. There was wealth in the old city 
before the British flocked to it, and withal an atmosphere 
of plenty and peaceful enjoyment of life. The descrip- 
tion of the Schuyler residence, " The Flatts," presented 
in Grant's Memoirs, probably indicates at its best the 
home life of the wealthier natives, and gives hints of a 
wholesome existence which, while not showy, was full 
of comfort: 

" It was a large brick house of two, or rather three 
stories (for there were excellent attics), besides a sunk 
story. . . . The lower floor had two spacious rooms, 
... on the first there were three rooms, and in the 
upper one, four. Through the middle of the house was 

^Humphrey's: Catherine Schuyler, p. 77. 



218 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

a very wide passage, with opposite front and back doors, 
which in summer admitted a stream of air pecuHarly 
grateful to the languid senses. It was furnished with 
chairs and pictures like a summer parlor. . . . There 
was at the side a large portico, with a few steps leading 
up to it, and floored hke a room ; it was open at the sides 
and had seats all round. Above was ... a slight 
wooden roof, painted hke an awning, or a covering of 
lattice work, over which a transplanted wild vine spread 
its luxuriant leaves. . . . 

" At the back of the large house was a smaller and 
lower one, so joined to it as to make the form of a cross. 
There one or two lower and smaller rooms below, and 
the same number above, afforded a refuge to the family 
during the rigors of winter, when the spacious summer 
rooms would have been intolerably cold, and the smoke 
of prodigious wood fires would have sullied the elegantly 
clean furniture."'^'' 

But before 1760, as indicated above, the English 
element in New York was making itself felt, and a 
curious minghng of gaiety and economy began to be 
noticeable. William Smith, writing in his History of the 
Province of New York, in 1757, points this out: " In 
the city of New York, through our intercourse with the 
Europeans, we follow the London fashions; though, by 
the time we adopt them, they become disused in Eng- 
land. Our affluence during the late war introduced a 
degree of luxury in tables, dress, and furniture, with 
which we were before unacquainted. But still we are 
not so gay a people as our neighbors in Boston and 
several of the Southern colonies. The Dutch counties, 

6« Page 83. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 219 

in some measure, follow the example of New York, but 
still retain many modes peculiar to the Hollanders. 

" New York is one of the most social places on the 
continent. The men collect themselves into weekly 
evening clubs. The ladies in winter are frequently 
entertained either at concerts of music or assemblies, 
and make a very good appearance. They are comely 
and dress well. . . . 

" Tinctured with the Dutch education, they manage 
their families with becoming parsimony, good provi- 
dence, and singular neatness. The practice of extrava- 
gant gaming, common to the fashionable part of the 
fair sex in some places, is a vice with which my country 
women cannot justly be charged. There is nothing they 
so generally neglect as reading, and indeed all the arts for 
the improvement of the mind — in which, I confess we 
have set them the example. They are modest, temper- 
ate, and charitable, naturally sprightly, sensible, and 
good-humored; and, by the helps of a more elevated 
education, would possess all the accomplishments de- 
sirable in the sex." 

With the coming of the Revolution, and the conse- 
quent invasion of the city by the British, New York 
became far more gay than ever before; but even then 
the native Dutch conservativeness so restrained social 
affairs that Philadelphia was more brilliant. When, 
however, the capital of the national government was 
located in New York then indeed did the city shine. 
Foreigners spoke with astonishment at the display of 
luxury and down-right extravagance. Brissot de War- 
ville, for example, writing in 1788, declared: " If there 
is a town on the American continent where English 



220 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

luxury displays its follies, it is New York." And James 
Pintard, after attending a New Year levee, given by 
Mrs. Washington, wrote his sister: " You will see no 
such formal bows at the Court of St. James." If we 
may judge by the dress of ladies attending such gather- 
ings, as one described in the New York Gazette of May 
15, 1789, we may safely conclude that expense was not 
spared in the upper classes of society. Hear some 
descriptions: 

" A plain, celestial blue satin with a white satin petti- 
coat. On the neck a very large Italian gauze handker- 
chief with white satin stripes. The head-dress was a puff 
of gauze in the form of a globe on a foundation of white 
satin, having a double wing in large plaits, with a wreath 
of roses twined about it. The hair was dressed with 
detached curls, four each side of the neck, and a floating 
c/i?'^now behind." 

" Another was a periot made of gray Indian taffetas 
with dark stripes of the same color with two collars, one 
white, one yellow with blue silk fringe, having a reverse 
trimmed in the same manner. Under the periot was a 
yellow corset of cross blue stripes. Around the bosom 
of the periot was a frill of white vandyked gauze of the 
same form covered with black gauze which hangs in 
streamers down her back. Her hair behind is a large 
braid with a monstrous crooked comb." 

We cannot say that the society of the new capital was 
notable for its intellect or for the intellectual turn of its 
activities. John Adams' daughter declared that it was 
" quite enough dissipated," and indeed costly dress, 
card playing, and dancing seem to have received an 
undue amount of society's attention. The Philadelphia 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 221 

belle, Miss Franks, wrote home: *' Here you enter a 
room with a formal set courtesy, and after the ' How-dos' 
things are finished, all a dead calm until cards are intro- 
duced when you see pleasure dancing in the eyes of all 
the matrons, and they seem to gain new life; the maidens 
decline for the pleasure of making love. Here it is 
always leap year. For my part I am used to another 
style of behavior." And, continues Miss Franks: 
" They (the Philadelphia girls) have more cleverness in 
the turn of the eye than those of New York in their 
whole composition." But blunt, old Governor Livings- 
ton, on the other hand, wrote his daughter Kitty that 
" the Philadelphia flirts are equally famous for their 
want of modesty and want of patriotism in their over- 
complacence to red-coats, who would not conquer the 
men of the country, but everywhere they have taken the 
women almost without a trial — damm them."^^ 

But there can be no doubt that the whirl of hfe was a 
little too giddy in New York, during the last years of the 
eighteenth century; and that, as a visiting Frenchman 
declared: " Luxury is already forming in this city, a 
very dangerous class of men, namely, the bachelors, the 
extravagance of the women makes them dread mar- 
riage. "^^ As mentioned above, there was much card 
playing among the women, and on the then fashionable 
John Street married women sometimes lost as high as 
$400 in a single evening of gambhng. To some of the 
older men who had suffered the hardships of war that the 
new nation might be born, such frivolity and extrava- 
gance seemed almost a crime, and doubtless these 

f Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 214. 
•9 Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 213. 



222 Womaii's Life in Colonial Days 

veterans would have agreed with Governor Livingston 
when he complained: " My principal Secretary of State, 
who is one of my daughters, has gone to New York to 
shake her heels at the balls and assemblies of a metropo- 
lis which might be better employed, more studious of 
taxes than of instituting expensive diversions. "^^ 

XI. Causes of Display and Frivolity 
What else could be expected, for the time being at 
least? For, the war over, the people naturally reacted 
from the dreary period of hardships and suspense to a 
period of luxury and enjoyment. Moreover, here was a 
new nation, and the citizens of the capital felt impelled 
to uphold the dignity of the new Commonwealth by 
some display of riches, brilliance, and power. Then, 
too, the first President of the young nation was not 
niggardly in dress or expenditure, and his contemporaries 
felt, naturally enough, that they must meet him at 
least half way. Washington apparently was a believer 
in dignified appearances, and there was frequently a 
wealth of livery attending his coach. A story went the 
round, no doubt in an exaggerated form, that shows 
perhaps too much punctiliousness on the part of the 
Father of His Country: 

" The night before the famous white chargers were to 
be used they were covered with a white paste, swathed 
in body clothes, and put to sleep on clean straw. In the 
morning this paste was rubbed in, and the horses brushed 
until their coats shone. The hoofs were then blacked 
and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. 
It is related that after this grooming the master of the 

•' Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 215. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 223 

stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean 
muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust 
the stable man was punished."^" 

Perhaps Washington himself rather enjoyed the 
stateliness and a certain aloofness in his position; but 
to Martha Washington, used to the freedom of social 
mingling on the Virginia plantation, the conditions were 
undoubtedly irksome. " I lead," she wrote, " a very 
dull life and know nothing that passes in the town, I 
never go to any public place — indeed I think I am more 
like a state prisoner than anything else, there is a cer- 
tain bound set for me which I must not depart from and 
as I cannot doe as I like I am obstinate and stay home a 
great deal." To some of the more democratic patriots 
all this dignity and formality and display were rather 
disgusting, and some did not hesitate to express them- 
selves in rather sarcastic language about the customs. 
For instance, gruff old Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania, 
who was not a lover of Washington anyway, recorded in 
his Journal his impressions of one of the President's 
decidedly formal dinners: 

" First was the soup; fish roasted and boiled; meats, 
gammon (smoked ham), fowls, etc. This was the dinner. 
The middle of the table was garnished in the usual 
tasty way, with small images, artificial flowers, etc. The 
dessert was first apple-pies, pudding, etc., then iced 
creams, jellies, etc., then water-melons, musk-melons, 
apples, peaches, nuts. . . . The President and Mrs. 
Washington sat opposite each other in the middle of the 
table; the two secretaries, one at each end. . . . 

" It was the most solemn dinner ever I sat at. Not a 

"> Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 209. 



224 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

health drank, scarce a word said until the cloth was taken 
away. Then the President, filling a glass of wine, with 
great formality drank to the health of every individual 
by name around the table. Everybody imitated him 
and changed glasses and such a buzz of ' health, sir,' and 
* health, madam,' and * thank you, sir,' and * thank you, 
madam ' never had I heard before. . . . The ladies 
sat a good v/hile and the bottles passed about; but 
there was a dead silence almost. Mrs. Washington at 
last withdrew with the ladies. 

" I expected the men would now begin but the same 
stillness remained. He (the President) now and then 
said a sentence or two on some common subject and 
what he said was not amiss. Mr. Jay tried to make a 
laugh by mentioning the Duchess of Devonshire leaving 
no stone unturned to carry Fox's election. There was a 
Mr. Smith who mentioned how Homer described iEneas 
leaving his wife and carrying his father out of flaming 
Troy. He had heard somebody (I suppose) witty on 
the occasion; but if he had ever read it he would have 
said Virgil. The President kept a fork in his hand, when 
the cloth was taken away, I thought for the purpose of 
picking nuts. He ate no nuts, however, but played with 
the fork, strildng on the edge of the table with it. 
We did not sit long after the ladies retired. The Presi- 
dent rose, went up-stairs to drink coffee; the company 
followed. I took my hat and came home." 

After all, it was well that our first President and his 
lady were believers in a reasonable amount of formality 
and dignity. They estabhshed a form of social etiquette, 
and an insistence on certain principles of high-bred 
procedure genuinely needed in a country the tendency 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 225 

of which was toward a crude display of raw, hail-fellow- 
well-met democracy. With an Andrew Jackson type of 
man as its first President, our country would soon have 
been the laughing stock of nations, and could never have 
gained that prestige which neither wealth nor power can 
bring, but which is obtained only through evidences of 
genuine civilization and culture. As Wharton says in 
her Martha Washington: '' An executive mansion pre- 
sided over by a man and woman who combined with the 
most ardent patriotism a dignity, elegance, and modera- 
tion that would have graced the court of any Old World 
sovereign, saved the social functions of the new nation 
from the crudeness and bald simplicity of extreme 
republicanism, as well as from the luxury and excess that 
often mark the sudden elevation to power and place of 
those who have spent their early years in obscurity."'^ 
Even after the removal of the capital from New York 
the city was still the scene of unabated gaiety. Eliza- 
beth Southgate, who became the wife of Walter Bowne, 
mayor of the metropolis, left among her letters the 
following bits of helpful description of the city pastimes 
and fashionable life: " Last night we were at the play — 
' The Way to Get Married.' Mr. Hodgkinson in Tangen 
is inimitable. Mrs. Johnson, a sweet, interesting actress, 
in Julia, and Jefferson, a great comic player, were all 
that were particularly pleasing. ... I have been to 
two of the gardens: Columbia, near the Battery — a 
most romantic, beautiful place — 'tis enclosed in a 
circular form and little rooms and boxes all round — 
with tables and chairs — these full of company. . . . 
They have a fine orchestra, and have concerts here 

" Page 195. 



226 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

sometimes. . . . We went on to the Battery — this is 
a large promonade by the shore of the North River — 
very extensive; rows and clusters of trees in every part, 
and a large walk along the shore, almost over the water. 
. . . Here too, they have music playing on the water in 
boats of a moonlight night. Last night we went to a 
garden a little out of town — Mount Vernon Garden. 
This, too, is surrounded by boxes of the same kind, with 
a walk on top of them — you can see the gardens all 
below — but 'tis a summer play-house — pit and boxes, 
stage and all, but open on top." 

XII. Society in Philadelphia 
As has been indicated, New York was not the only 
center of brilhant social activity in colonial America. 
Philadelphia laid claim to having even more charming 
society and vastly more " exclusive " social functions, 
and it is undoubtedly true that for some years before the 
war, and even after New York became the capital, 
Philadelphia " set the social pace." And, when the 
capital was removed to the Quaker City, there was 
indeed a brilKance in society that would have compared 
not unfavorably with the best in England during the 
same years. Unfortunately few magazine articles or 
books picturing the life in the city at that time remain; 
but from diaries, journals, and letters we may gain many 
a hint. Before and during the Revolution there were at 
Philadelphia numerous wealthy Tory families, who 
loved the lighter side of life, and when the town was 
occupied by the British these pro-British citizens offered 
a welcome both extended and expensive. As Wharton 
says in her Through Colonial Doorways: 



. Colonial Woman and Social Life 227 

" The Quaker City had, at the pleasure of her con- 
queror, doffed her sober drab and appeared in festal 
array. . . . The best that the city afforded was at the 
disposal of the enemy, who seem to have spent their 
days in feasting and merry-making, while Washington 
and his army endured all the hardships of the severe 
winter of 1777-8 upon the bleak hill-sides of Valley 
Forge. Dancing assemblies, theatrical entertainments, 
and various gaieties marked the advent of the British 
in Philadelphia, all of which formed a fitting prelude to 
the full-blown glories of the Meschianza, which burst 
upon the admiring inhabitants on that last-century 
May day."" 

This, however, was not a sudden outburst of reckless 
joy on the part of the Philadelphians; for long before the 
coming of Howe the wealthier families had given social 
functions that delighted and astonished foreign visitors. 
We are sure that as early as 1738 dancing was taught by 
Theobald Hackett, who offered to instruct in " all sorts 
of fashionable English and French dances, after the 
newest and politest manner practiced in London, Dublin, 
and Paris, and to give to young ladies, gentlemen, and 
children, the most graceful carriage in dancing and gen- 
teel behavior in company that can possibly be given by 
any dancing master, whatever." 

Before the middle of the eighteenth century balls, or 
" dancing assemblies " had become popular in Phila- 
delphia, and, being sanctioned by no less authority than 
the Governor himself, were frequented by the best 
families of the city. In a letter by an influential clergy- 
man, Richard Peters, we find this reference to such 

" Page 24. 



228 Womari's Life in Colonial Days 

fashionable meetings: " By the Governor's encourage- 
ment there has been a very handsome assembly once a 
fortnight at Andrew Hamilton's house and stores, which 
are tenanted by Mr. Inglis (and) make a set of rooms for 
such a purpose and consist of eight ladies and as many 
gentlemen, one half appearing every Assembly Night." 
There were a good many strict rules regulating the 
conduct of these balls, among them being one that every 
meeting should begin promptly at six and close at twelve. 
The method of obtaining admission is indicated in the 
following notice from the Pennsylvania Journal of 1771: 
" The Assembly will be opened this evening, and as the 
receiving money at the door has been found extremely 
inconvenient, the managers think it necessary to give the 
public notice that no person will be admitted without a 
ticket from the directors which (through the application 
of a subscriber) may be had of either of the managers." 

As card-playing was one of the leading pastimes of the 
day, rooms were set aside at these dancing assemblies 
for those who preferred " brag " and other fashionable 
games with cards. But far the greater number preferred 
to dance, and to those who did, the various figures and 
steps were seemingly a rather serious matter, not to be 
looked upon as a source of mere amusement. The 
Marquis de Chastellux has left us a description of one of 
these assemblies attended by him during the Revolu- 
tion, and, if his words are true, such affairs called for 
rather concentrated attention : 

" A manager or master of ceremonies presides at these 
methodical amusements; he presents to the gentlemen 
and ladies dancers billets folded up containing each a 
number; thus, fate decided the male or female partner 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 229 

for the whole evening. All the dances are previously 
arranged and the dancers are called in their turns. These 
dances, like the toasts we drink at table, have some rela- 
tion to politics; one is called the Success of the Cam- 
paign, another the Defeat of Burgoyne, and a third 
Clinton's Retreat. . . . Colonel Mitchell was formerly 
the manager, but when I saw him he had descended from 
the magistracy and danced like a private citizen. He is 
said to have exercised his office with great severity, and 
it is told of him that a young lady who was figuring in a 
country dance, having forgotten her turn by conversing 
with a friend, was thus addressed by him, ' Give over, 
miss, mind what you are about. Do you think you come 
here for your pleasure? ' " 

XIII. The Beauty of Philadelphia Women 
Any investigator of early American social life may 
depend on Abigail Adams for spicy, keen observations 
and interesting information. Her letters picture happily 
the activities of Philadelphia society during the last 
decade of the eighteenth century. For instance, she 
writes in 1790: " On Friday last I went to the drawing 
room, being the first of my appearance in public. The 
room became full before I left it, and the circle very 
brilhant. How could it be otherwise when the dazzhng 
Mrs. Bingham and her beautiful sisters were there; 
the Misses Allen, and the Misses Chew; in short a con- 
stellation of beauties? If I were to accept one-half the 
invitations I receive I should spend a very dissipated 
winter. Even Saturday evening is not excepted, and I 
refused an invitation of that kind for this evening. I 
have been to one assembly. The dancing was very good; 



230 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

the company the best; the President and Madam, the 
Vice-President and Madam, Ministers of State and their 
Madames, etc." 

The mention of Mrs. Bingham leads us to some notice 
of her and her environment, as an aid to our perception 
of the real culture and brilliance found in the higher 
social circles of colonial Philadelphia and New York. 
One of the most beautiful women of the day, Mrs. 
Bingham, added to a good education, the advantage of 
much travel abroad, and a lengthy visit at the Court of 
Louis XVI. Her beauty and elegance were the talk of 
Paris, The Hague, and London, and Mrs. Adams' com- 
ment from London voiced the general foreign sentiment 
about her: " She is coming quite into fashion here, and 
is very much admired. The hair-dresser who dresses us 
on court days inquired . . . whether ... we knew the 
lady so much talked of here from America — Mrs. 
Bingham. He had heard of her . . . and at last speak- 
ing of Miss Hamilton he said with a twirl of his comb, 
' Well, it does not signify, but the American ladies do 
beat the English all to nothing.' " 

An English traveller, Wansey, visited her in her 
Philadelphia home, and wrote: " I dined this day with 
Mrs. Bingham. ... I found a magnificent house and 
gardens in the best English style, with elegant and even 
superb furniture. The chairs of the drawing room were 
from Seddons in London, of the newest taste — the 
backs in the form of a lyre with festoons of crimson and 
yellow silk; the curtains of the room a festoon of the 
same; the carpet one of Moore's most expensive pat- 
terns. The room was papered in the French taste, after 
the style of the Vatican at Rome." 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 231 

Such a woman was, of course, destined to be a social 
leader, and while her popularity was at its height, she 
introduced many a foreign custom or fad to the some- 
what unsophisticated society of America. One of these 
was that of having a servant announce repeatedly the 
name of the visitor as he progressed from the outside 
door to the drawing room, and this in itself caused con- 
siderable ridiculous comment and sometimes embarrass- 
ing blunders on the part of Americans ignorant of 
foreign etiquette. One man, hearing his name thus 
called a number of times while he was taking off his 
overcoat, bawled out repeatedly, " Coming, coming," 
until at length, his patience gone, he shouted, " Coming, 
just as soon as I can get my great-coat off ! " 

The beauty and brilliance of Philadelphia were not 
without honor at home, and this recognition of local 
talent caused some rather spiteful comparisons to be 
made wi.h the New York belles. Rebecca Franks, to 
whom we have referred several times, declared: " Few 
New York ladies know how to entertain company in 
their own houses, unless they introduce the card table. 
... I don't know a woman or girl that can chat above 
half an hour and that on the form of a cap, the color of a 
ribbon, or the set of a hoop, stay, or gapun. I will do 
our ladies, that is in Philadelphia, the justice to say 
they have more cleverness in the turn of an eye, than the 
New York girls have in their whole composition. With 
what ease have I seen a Chew, a Penn, Oswald, Allen, 
and a thousand others entertain a large circle of both 
sexes and the conversation, without aid of cards, not 
flagg or seem in the least strained or stupid." 



232 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

XIV. Social Functions 

While the beauty of the Phihidelphia women was 
notable — the Duke Rochefoucauld-Liancourt declared 
that it was impossible to meet with what is called a 
plain woman — the lavish use of wealth was no less 
noticeable. The equipage, the drawing room, the very- 
kitchens of some homes were so extravagantly furnished 
that foreign visitors marvelled at the display. Indeed, 
some spiteful people of the day declared that the Bing- 
ham home was so gaudy and so filled with evidences of 
wealth that it lacked a great deal of being comfortable. 
The trappings of the horses, the furnishings of the 
family coaches, the livery of the footmen, drivers, and 
attendants apparently were equal to those possessed by 
the most aristocratic in London and Paris. 

Probably one of the most brilliant social occasions 
was the annual celebration of Washington's birthday, 
and while the first President was in Philadelphia, he was, 
of course, always present at the ball, and made no effort 
to conceal his pleasure and gratitude for this mark of 
esteem. The entire day was given over to pomp and 
ceremony. According to a description by Miss Cham- 
bers, " The morning of the ' twenty-second ' was ushered 
in by the discharge of heavy artillery. The whole city 
was in commotion, making arrangements to demon- 
strate their attachment to our beloved President. The 
Masonic, Cincinnati, and military orders united in 
doing him honor." In describing the hall, she says: 
" The seats were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, 
and cords were stretched on each side of the room, about 
three feet from the floor, to preserve sufficient space for 
the dances. We were not long seated when General 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 233 

Washington entered and bowed to the ladies as he passed 
round the room. . . . The dancing soon after com- 
menced."" 

There can be Httle doubt that Mrs. Washington en- 
joyed her stay in Philadelphia far more than the period 
spent in New York. In Philadelphia there was a very 
noticeable atmosphere of hospitality and easy friendli- 
ness; here too were many Southern visitors and Southern 
customs; for in those days of difficult travel Phila- 
delphia seemed much nearer to Virginia than did New 
York. Even with such a congenial environment Martha 
Washington, with her innate domesticity, was con- 
stantly thinking of hfe at Mount Vernon, and in the 
midst of festivities and assemblies of genuine diplomatic 
import, would stop to write to her niece at home such a 
thoroughly housewifely message as: ''I do not know 
what keys you have — it is highly necessary that the 
beds and bed clothes of all kinds should be aired, if you 
have the keys I beg you will make Caroline put all the 
things of every kind out to air and brush and clean all 
the places and rooms that they were in." 

But Mrs. Washington was not alone in Philadelphia 
in this domestic tendency; many of those women who 
dazzled both Americans and foreigners with their beauty 
and social graces were most careful housekeepers, and 
even expert at weaving and sewing. Sarah Bache, 
for example, might please at a ball, but the next morning 
might find her industriously working at the spinning 
wheel. We find her writing her father, Ben Franklin, 
in 1790: " If I was to mention to you the prices of the 
common necessaries of life, it would astonish you. I 

" Wharton: Martha Washinyton, p. 230. 



234< Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

should tell you that I had seven tablecloths of my own 
spinning." Again, she shrewdly requests her father in 
Paris to send her various articles of dress which are 
entirely too expensive in America, but the old gentle- 
man's answer seems still more shrewd, especially when 
we remember what a delightful time he was just then 
having with several sprightly French dames: " I was 
charmed with the account you gave me of your industry, 
the tablecloths of your own spinning, and so on; but 
the latter part of the paragraph that you had sent for 
linen from France . . . and you sending for . . . lace 
and feathers, disgusted me as much as if you had put 
salt into my strawberries. The spinning, I see, is laid 
aside, and you are to be dressed for the ball! You seem 
not to know, my dear daughter, that of all the dear 
things in this world idleness is the dearest, except 
mischief." 

Her declaration in her letter that " there was never so 
much pleasure and dressing going on " is corroborated 
by the statement of an officer writing to General Wayne : 
" It is all gaiety, and from what I can observe, every 
lady endeavors to outdo the other in splendor and show. 
. . . The manner of entertaining in this place has like- 
wise undergone its change. You cannot conceive any- 
thing more elegant than the present taste. You can 
hardly dine at a table but they present you with three 
courses, and each of them in the most elegant manner." 

XV. Theatrical Performances 
The dinners and balls seem to have been expensive 
enough, but another demand for expenditure, especially 
in items of dress, arose from the constantly increasing 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 235 

popularity of the theatre. In Philadelphia the first 
regular theatre season began in 1754, and from this time 
forth the stage seems to have filled an important part 
in the activities of society. We find that Washington 
attended such performances at the early South Street 
Theatre, and was especially pleased with a comedy 
called The Young Quaker; or the Fair Philadelphian by 
O'Keefe, a sketch that was followed by a pantomimic 
ballet, a musical piece called The Children in the Wood, 
a recitation of Goldsmith's Epilogue in the character of 
Harlequin, and a "grand finale" by some adventuresome 
actor who made a leap through a barrel of fire! Truly 
vaudeville began early in America. 

Mrs. Adams from staid old Massachusetts, where 
theatrical performances were not received cordially for 
many a year, wrote from Philadelphia in 1791: "The 
managers of the theatre have been very polite to me 
and my family. I have been to one play, and here 
again we have been treated with much politeness. 
The actors came and informed us that a box was pre- 
pared for us. . . . The house is equal to most of the 
theatres we meet with out of France. . . . The actors 
did their best; the ' School for Scandal ' was the play. 
I missed the divine Farran, but upon the whole it was 
very well performed." 

The first theatrical performance given in New York 
is said to have been acted in a barn by English officers 
and shocked beyond all measure the honest Dutch 
citizens whose lives hitherto had gone along so peace- 
fully without such ungodly spectacles. As Humphreys 
writes in her Catherine Schuyler, " Great was the scandal 
in the church and among the burghers. Their indict- 



236 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

ment was searching. . . . Moreover, they painted their 
faces which was against God and nature. , . . They 
had degraded manhood by assuming female habits." ^^ 

But in most sections of the Middle Colonies, as well 
as in Virginia and South Carolina, the colonists took 
very readily to the theatre, and in both Pennsylvania 
and Virginia, where the curtain generally arose at six 
o'clock, such crowds attended that the fashionable folk 
commonly sent their negroes ahead to hold the seats 
against all comers. Williamsburg, Virginia, had a good 
play house as early as 1716; Charleston just a little 
later, and Annapolis had regular performances in 1752. 
Baltimore first opened the theatre in 1782, and did the 
thing " in the fine style," by presenting Shakespeare's 
King Richard. Society doubtless tingled with excite- 
ment when that first theatrical notice appeared in the 
Baltimore papers: 

" THE NEW THEATRE IN BALTIMORE 
Will Open, This Evening, being the 15th of January . . . 
With an HISTORICAL TRAGEDY, CALLED 
KING RICHARD III 

AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE by MR. WALL 
to which will be added a FARCE, 
MISS IN HER TEENS 

"Boxes: One Dollar: Pit Five Shillings: Galleries 9d. 
Doors to be open at Half-past Four, and will begin at 
Six o'clock. 

" No persons can be admitted without Tickets, which 
may be had at the coffee House in Baltimore, and at 
Lindlay's Coffee House on Fells-Point. 

'« Page 45. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 237 

" No Persons will on any pretence be admitted behind 
the Scenes." 

This last sentence was indeed a necessary one; for 
during the earlier days of the American theatre many in 
the audience frequently invaded the stage, either to 
congratulate the actors or to express in fistic combat 
their disgust over the play or the acting. It was not 
uncommon, too, for eggs to be thrown from the gallery, 
and both this and the rushing upon the stage was ex- 
pressly forbidden at length by the authorities of several 
towns. Every class in colonial days seems to have 
found its own peculiar way of enjoying itself, whether 
by fascinating through beauty and brilliance the sup- 
posedly sophisticated French dukes, or by pelting barn- 
storming actors with eggs and other missiles. 

The limits of one volume force us to omit many an 
interesting social feature of colonial days, especially of 
the cities. How much might be said of the tavern life 
of New York City and the vicinity, how much of those 
famous resorts, Vauxhall and Ranelagh, where many a 
device to arouse the wonder of the fashionable guests was 
invented and constructed! Then, too, much might be 
related about the popular " fish dinners " of New York 
and Annapolis, the horse races in Virginia and Mary- 
land, the militia parades and pageants at Charleston. 
But sufficient has been offered to prove that the prev- 
alent idea of a dreary atmosphere that lasted through- 
out the entire colonial period is false; certainly during the 
eighteenth century at least, the average American colo- 
nist obtained as much pleasure out of life as the rushing, 
ever-busy American of our own day. 



238 Wommi's Life in Colonial Days 

XVI. Strange Customs in Louisiana 
It should be noted that most of these pleasures were 
in the main healthful and normal, and, in the eyes of the 
Anglo-Saxon colonists at least, made a most commenda- 
ble contrast to the recreations indulged in by the French 
colonists of Louisiana. There can be but little doubt 
that during the last years of the eighteenth century 
moral conditions in this far southern colony might have 
been far better. Although Louis XIV, the Grand 
Monarch, had been dead practically a century, he had 
left as a heritage a passion for pleasure and merry- 
making that was causing the French nobility to revel 
in profligacy and vice. It must be admitted that many 
of the French colonists in America were apt pupils of 
their European relatives, while the Creole population, 
born of at least an unmoral union, was, to say the least, 
in no wise a hindrance to pleasures of a rather lax char- 
acter. Then, too, there was the negro, or more accu- 
rately the mulatto, who if he or, again more accurately, 
she had any moral scruples, had little opportunity as a 
slave or servant to exercise them. 

The settlers of Louisiana had an active trade with the 
West Indies, and a percentage of the population was 
composed of West Indians, a people then notorious for 
their lack of moral restraint. The traders travelling 
between Louisiana and these islands were frequently 
unprincipled ruffians, and their companions on shore 
were commonly sharpers, desperadoes, pirates, and 
criminals steeped in vice. Tiring of the raw life of the 
sea or sometimes fleeing from justice in northern cities, 
such men looked to New Orleans for that peculiar type 
of free and easy civilization which most pleased their 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 239 

nature. Hence, although some better class families of 
culture and refinement resided in the city, there was but 
little in common socially at least between it and such 
centers as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. As a 
sea-port looking to those eighteenth century fens of 
wickedness, the West Indies; as a river port toward 
which traders, trappers, and planters of the Mississippi 
Valley looked as a resort for relieving themselves of 
accumulated thirst and passion; as the home of mixed 
races, some of which were but a few decades removed 
from savagery; this city could not avoid its reputation 
for lax principles, and free-and-easy vice. 

Berquin-Duvallon, writing in 1803, gave what he 
doubtless considered an accurate picture of social condi- 
tions during that year, and, although this is a little later 
than the period covered in our study, still it is hardly 
likely that conditions were much better twenty years 
earlier; if anything, they were probably much worse. 
Of one famous class of Louisiana women he has this to 
say: " The Creoles of Louisiana are blond rather than 
brunette. The women of this country who may be 
included among the number of those whom nature has 
especially favored, have a skin which without being of 
extreme whiteness, is still beautiful enough to constitute 
one of their charms; and features which although not 
very regular, form an agreeable whole; a very pretty 
throat; a stature that indicates strength and health; 
and (a peculiar and distinguishing feature) lively eyes 
full of expression, as well as a magnificent head of hair."^^ 

Such women, as w^ll as the negro and mulatto girls, 
were an ever present temptation to men whose passion 

" Robertson: Louisiana under Spain, France, and U. S., Vol. I, p. 70. 



240 Womari's Life in Colonial Days 

had never known restraint. Thus Berquin-Duvallon 
declares that concubinage was far more common than 
marriage: '^ The rarity of marriage must necessarily 
be attributed to the causes we have already assigned, 
to that state of celibacy, to that monkish life, the taste 
for which is extending here more and more among the 
men. In witness of what I advance on this matter, one 
single observation will suffice, as follows: For the two 
and one-half years that I have been in this colony not 
thirty marriages at all notable have occurred in New 
Orleans and for ten leagues about it. And in this 
district there are at least six hundred white girls of 
virtuous estate, of marriageable age, between fourteen 
and twenty-five or thirty years." 

This early observer receives abundant corroboration 
from other travellers of the day, Paul Alliott, drawing 
a contrast between New Orleans and St. Louis, another 
city with a considerable number of French inhabitants, 
says: " The inhabitants of the city of St. Louis, like 
those old time simple and united patriarchs, do not live 
at all in debauchery as do a part of those of New Orleans. 
Marriage is honored there, and the children resulting 
from it share the inheritance of their parents without 
any quarrelfing."^" But, says Berquin-Duvallon, among 
a lai'ge percentage of the colonists about New Orleans, 
" their taste for women extends more particularly to 
those of color, whom they prefer to the white women, 
because such women demand fewer of those annoying 
attentions which contradict their taste for independence. 
A great number, accordingly, prefer to live in concubin- 
age rather than to marry. They find in that the double 

"Robertson. Vol. I, p. 85. 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 241 

advantage of being served with the most scrupulous 
exactness, and in case of discontent or unfaithfulness, of 
changing their housekeeper (this is the honorable name 
given to that sort of woman)." Of course, such a scheme 
of life was not especially conducive to happiness among 
white women, and, although as Alliott declares, the 
white men " have generally much more regard for 
(negro girls) in their domestic economy than they do for 
their legitimate wives . . . the (white) women show the 
greatest contempt and aversion for that sort of women." 

When moral conditions could shock an eighteenth 
century Frenchman they must have been exceptionally 
bad; but the customs of the New Orleans men were 
entirely too unprincipled for Berquin-Duvallon and 
various other French investigators. " Not far from the 
taverns are obscene bawdy houses and dirty smoking 
houses where the father on one side, and the son on the 
other go, openly and without embarrassment as well as 
without shame, ... to revel and dance indiscriminately 
and for whole nights with a lot of men and women of 
saffron color or quite black, either free or slave. Will 
any one dare to deny this fact? I will only designate, 
in support of my assertion (and to say no more), the 
famous house of Coquet, located near the center of the 
city, where all that scum is to be seen publicly, and that 
for several years." ^^ 

Naturally, as a matter of mere defense, the women of 
pure white blood drew the color line very strictly, and 
would not knowingly mingle socially to the very slightest 
degree with a person of mixed negro or Indian blood. 
Such severe distinctions led to embarrassing and even 

" Robertson, Vol. I, p. 216. 



242 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

cruel incidents at social gatherings; and on many occa- 
sions, if cool-headed social leaders had not quickly ejected 
guests of tainted hneage, there undoubtedly would have 
been bloodshed. Berquin-Duvallon describes just such 
a scene : " The ladies' ball is a sanctuary where no woman 
dare approach if she has even a suspicion of mixed blood. 
The purest conduct, the most eminent virtues could not 
lessen this strain in the eyes of the implacable ladies. 
One of the latter, married and known to have been 
implicated in various intrigues with men of the locality, 
one day entered one of those fine balls. ' There is a 
woman of mixed blood here,' she cried haughtily. This 
rumor ran about the ballroom. In fact, two young 
quadroon ladies were seen there, who were esteemed for 
the excellent education which they had received, and 
much more for their honorable conduct. They were 
warned and obliged to disappear in haste before a 
shameless woman, and their society would have been a 
real pollution for her." 

Perhaps, after all, little blame for such outbursts can 
be placed upon the white women of the day. Berquin- 
Duvallon recognized and admired their excellent quahty 
and seems to have wondered why so many men could 
prefer girls of color to these clean, healthy, and honora- 
ble ladies. Of them he says: " The Louisiana women, 
and notably those born and resident on the plantations, 
have various estimable quahties. Respectful as girls, 
affectionate as wives, tender as mothers, and careful as 
mistresses, possessing thoroughly the details of house- 
hold economy, honest, reserved, proper — in the van 
almost — they are, in general, most excellent women." 
But of those of mixed blood or lower lineage, he remarks : 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 243 

" A tone of extravagance and show in excess of one's 
means is seen there in the dress of the women, in the 
elegance of their carriages, and in their fine furniture." 

Indeed, this display in dress and equipage astounded 
the French. The sight of it in a city where Indians, 
negroes, and half-breeds mingled freely with whites on 
street and in dive, where sanitary conditions were beyond 
description, and where ignorance and slovenliness were 
too apparent to be overlooked, seems to have rather 
nettled Berquin-Duvallon, and he sometimes grew rather 
heated in his descriptions of an unwarranted luxury and 
extravagance equal to that of the capitals of Europe. 
But now, " the women of the city dress tastefully, and 
their change of appearance in this respect in a very 
short space of time is really surprising. Not three years 
ago, with lengthened skirts, the upper part of their 
clothing being of one color, and the lower of another, 
and all the rest of their dress in proportion; they were 
brave with many ribbons and few jewels. Thus rigged 
out they went everywhere, on their round of visits, to 
the ball, and to the theatre. To-day, such a costume 
seems to them, and rightfully so, a masquerade. The 
richest of embroidered musHns, cut in the latest styles, 
and set off as transparencies over soft and brilliant 
taffetas, with magnificent lace trimmings, and with 
embroidery and gold-embroidered spangles, are to-day 
fitted to and beautify well dressed women and girls; 
and this is accompanied by rich earrings, necklaces, 
bracelets, rings, precious jewels, in fine with all that can 
relate to dress — to that important occupation of the 
fair sex." 

But beneath all this gaudy show of dress and wealth 



244 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

there was a shameful ignorance that seems to have dis- 
gusted foreign visitors. There was so Httle other 
pleasure in life for the women of this colony; their 
education was so limited that they could not possibly 
have known the variety of intellectual pastimes that 
made life so interesting for Eliza Pinckney, Mrs. Adams, 
and Catherine Schuyler. With surprise Berquin-Duval- 
lon noted that " there is no other public institution fit 
for the education of the youth of this country than a 
simple school maintained by the government. It is 
composed of about fifty children, nearly all from poor 
families. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught 
there in two languages, French and Spanish. There is 
also the house of the French nuns, who have some young 
girls as boarders, and who have a class for day students. 
There is also a boarding school for young Creole girls, 
which was established about fifteen months ago. . . . 
The Creole women lacking in general the talents that 
adorn education have no taste for music, drawing, or 
embroidery, but in revenge they have an extreme passion 
for dancing and w^ould pass all their days and nights 
at it." 

There was indeed some attendance at theatres as the 
source of amusement; but of the sources of cultural 
pleasure there were certainly very few. To our French 
friend it was genuinely disgusting, and he relieved his 
feelings in the following summary of fault-finding: 
" Few good musicians are to be seen here. There is 
only one single portrait painter, whose talent is suited to 
the walk of life where he employs it. Finally, in a city 
inhabited by ten thousand souls, as is New Orleans, I 
record it as a fact that not ten truly learned men can 



Colonial Woman and Social Life 245 

be found. . . . There is found here neither ship-yard, 
colonial post, college, nor public nor private library. 
Neither is there a book store, and, for good reasons, for 
a bookseller would die of hunger in the midst of his 
books." 

With little of an intellectual nature to divert them, 
with the temptations incident to slavery and mixed 
races on every hand, with a heritage of rather lax ideas 
concerning sexual morality, the men of the day too fre- 
quently found their chief pastimes in feeding the appe- 
tites of the flesh, and too often the women forgot and 
forgave. To Berquin-Duvallon it all seems very strange 
and very crude. " I cannot accustom myself to those 
great mobs, or to the old custom of the men (on these 
gala occasions or better, orgies) of getting more than on 
edge with wine, so that they get fuddled even before the 
ladies, and afterward act like drunken men in the pres- 
ence of those beautiful ladies, who, far from being 
offended at it, appear on the contrary to be amused by 
it." And out of it all, out of these conditions forming 
so vivid a contrast to the average life of Massachusetts 
and Pennsylvania, grew this final dark picture — one 
that could not have been tolerated in the Anglo-Saxon 
colonies of the North: " The most remarkable, as well 
as the most pathetic result of that gangrenous irregu- 
larity in this city is the exposing of a number of white 
babies (sad fruits of a clandestine excess) who are sacri- 
ficed from birth by their guilty mothers to a false honor 
after they have sacrificed their true honor to their un- 
bridled inclination for a luxury that destroys them." 

Thus, we have had glimpses of social fife, with its 
pleasures, throughout the colonies. Perhaps, it was a 



246 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

trifle too cautious in Massachusetts, a little fearful lest 
the mere fact that a thing was pleasant might make it 
sinful; perhaps in early New York it was a little too 
physical, though generally innocent, smacking a little 
too much of rich, heavy foods and drink; perhaps among 
the Virginians it echoed too often with the bay of the 
fox hound and the click of racing hoofs. But certainly 
in the latter half of the eighteenth century whether in 
Massachusetts, the Middle Colonies, or Virginia and 
South Carolina, social activities often showed a culture, 
refinement, and general eclat which no young nation need 
be ashamed of, and which, in fact, were far above what 
might justly have been expected in a country so little 
touched by the hand of civilized man. In the main, 
those were wholesome, sane days in the English colonies, 
and life offered almost as pleasant a journey to most 
Americans as it does to-day. 



CHAPTER VI 

Colonial Woman and Marriage 

7. New England Weddings 
Of course, practically every American novel dealing 
with the colonial period — or any other period, for that 
matter — closes with a marriage and ahint that they lived 
happily ever afterwards. Did they indeed? To satisfy 
our curiosity about this point let us examine those early 
customs that dealt with courtship, marriage, punishment 
for offenses against the marriage law, and the general 
status of woman after marriage. 

^ For many years a wedding among the Puritans was a 
very quiet affair totally unUke the ceremony in the 
South, where feasting, dancing, and merry-making were 
almost always accompaniments. For information about 
the occasion in Massachusetts we may, of course, turn 
to the inevitable Judge Sewall. As a guest he saw 
innumerable weddings; as a magistrate he performed 
many; as one of the two principal participants he took 
part in several. He has left us a record of his own 
frequent courtships, of how he was rejected or accepted, 
and of his life after the acceptances; and from it all one 
may make a rather fair analysis not only of the conven- 
tional methods and domestic manners of New England 
but also of the character and spirit of the other sex during 
such trying occasions. The evidence shows that while a 
young woman was generally given her choice of accept- 

>41 



248 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

ing or declining, the suitor, before offering his atten- 
tions, first asked permission to do so from her parents or 
guardians. Thus a marriage seldom occurred in which 
the parents or other interested parties were left in 
ignorance as to the design, or ignored in the deciding of 
the choice. 

Sewall offers us sufiicient proof on this point: " Deer. 7, 
1719. Mr. Cooper asks my Consent for Judith's Com- 
pany; which I freely grant him." " Feria Secunda, 
Octobr. 13, 1729. Judge Davenport comes to me 
between 10 and 11 a-clock in the morning and speaks to 
me on behalf of Mr. Addington Davenport, his eldest 
Son, that he might have Liberty to Wait upon Jane 
Hirst [his kinswoman] now at my House in way of 
Courtship. "1 And it should be noted that the parents of 
the young man took a keen interest in the matter, and 
showed genuine appreciation that their son was permitted 
to court with the full sanction of the lady's parents. 
Thus Sewall records: " Deer. 11. I and my Wife visit 
Mr. Stoddard. Madam Stoddard Thank'd me for the 
Liberty I granted her Son [Mr. Cooper] to wait on my 
daughter Judith. I returned the Compliment and 
Kindness."^ 

It might well be conjectured that to toy with a girl's 
affections was a serious matter. If the young man 
attempted without consent of the young woman's 
parents or guardian to make love to her, the audacious 
youth could be hailed into court, where it might indeed 
go hard with him. Thus the records of Suffolk County 
Court for 1676 show that " John Lorin stood ' convict 

1 Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 237, p. .396. 
* Diary: Vol. III. p. 237. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 249 

on his own confession of making love to Mary Willis 
without her parents consent and after being forwarned 
by them, £5."^ 

But the lover might have his revenge; for if a stub- 
born father proved unreasonable and refused to give a 
cause for not allowing a courtship, the young man could 
bring the older one into court, and there compel him to 
allow love to take its own way, or state excellent reasons 
for objecting. Thus, in 1646 '' Richard Taylor com- 
plained to the general Court of Plymouth that he was 
prevented from marrying Ruth Wheildon by her father 
Gabriel; but when before the court Gabriel yielded 
and promised no longer to oppose the marriage."* 

And then, if the young gallant (may we dare call a 
Puritan beau that?) after having captured the girl's 
heart, failed to abide by his engagement, woe betide 
him; for into the court he and her father might go, and 
the young gentleman might come forth lacking several 
pounds in money, if not in flesh. The Massachusetts 
colony records show, for instance, that the court " orders 
that Joyce Bradwicke shall give unto Alex. Becke the 
some of xxs, for promiseing him marriage wthout her 
frends consent, & nowe refuseing to pforme the same."^ 
Again, the Plymouth colony records, as quoted by 
Howard, state that " Richard Siluester, in the behalfe 
of his dautheter, and Dinah Siluester in the behalfe of 
herselfe ' to recover twenty pounds and costs from John 
Palmer, for acteing fraudulently against the said Dinah, 
in not pforming his engagement to her in point of mar- 
riage.' " " In 1735, a woman was awarded two hundred 

• Howard: Hiftory of Matrimonial Institutions, p. 166. 
< Howard: p. 103. 
' Howard: p. 200. 



250 Woman''s Life in Colonial Daifs 

pounds and costs at the expense of her betrothed, who, 
after jilting her, had married another, although he had 
first beguiled her into deeding him a piece of land 
' worth £100.' " 

Serious as was the matter of the mere courtship, the 
fact that the do-^TV or marriage portion had to be con- 
sidered made the act of marriage even more serious. 
The devout elders, who taught devotion to heavenly 
things and scorn of the things of this world, neverthe- 
less haggled and wrangled long and stubbornly over a 
few pounds more or less. Judge Sewall seems to have 
prided himself on the friendly spirit and expediteness 
with which he settled such a matter. " Oct. 13, 1729. 
Judge Davenport comes to me between 10 and 11 a-clock 
in the morning and speaks to me on behalf of Mr. 
Addington Davenport, his eldest Son, that he might 
have Liberty to Wait upon Jane Hirst now at my House 
in way of Courtship. He told me he would deal by him 
as his eldest Son, and more than so. Inten'd to build a 
House where his uncle Addington dwelt, for him; and 
that he should have his Pue in the Old Meeting-house. 
... He said Madam Addington Would wait upon 
me."« 

Not only was provision thus made for the future 
financial condition of the wedded, but also the possi- 
bility of the death of either party after the day of mar- 
riage was kept in mind, and a sum to be paid in such an 
emergency agreed upon. For example, Sewall records 
after the death of his daughter ]Mary: '' Tuesday, Febr. 
19, 1711-2. . . . Dine with Mr. Gerrish, son Gerrish 
[Mary's husband], Mrs. Anne. Discourse with the 

« Diary: Vol. III. p. 396. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 251 

Father about my Daughter Mary's Portion. I stood 
for making £550 doe; because now twas in six parts, the 
Land was not worth so much. He urg'd for £600, at 
last would split the £50. Finally, Febr. 20, I agreed to 
charge the House-Rent, and Differences of Money, and 
make it up £600."^ 

II. Judge SewalVs Courtships 
The Judge's own accounts of his many courtships and 
three marriages give us rather surprising glimpses of the 
spirit and independence of colonial women, who, as 
pictured in the average book on American history, are 
generally considered weak, meek, and yielding. His 
wooing of Madam Winthrop, for instance, was long and 
arduous and ended in failure. She would not agree to 
his proffered marriage settlement; she demanded that 
he keep a coach, which he could not afford; she even 
declared that his wearing of a wig was a prerequisite if he 
obtained her for a wife. Mrs. Winthrop had been 
through marriage before, and she evidently knew how to 
test the man before accepting. Not at all a cUnging vine 
type of woman, she well knew how to take care of her- 
self, and her manner, therefore, of accepting his atten- 
tions is indeed significant. Under date of October 23 
we find in his Diary this brief note: " My dear wife is 
inter'd "; and on February 26, he writes: " This morn- 
ing wondering in my mind whether to live a single or a 
married life."* 

Then come his friends, interested in his physical and 
spiritual welfare, and reahzing that it is not well for man 

' Diary: Vol. II. p. 336. 
• Vol. Ill, pp. 144, 165. 



252 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

to live alone, they begin to urge upon him the benefits 
of wedlock. " March 14, 1717. Deacon Marion comes 
to me, visits with me a great while in the evening; after 
a great deal of discourse about his Courtship — He told 
[me] the Olivers said they wish'd I would Court their 
Aunt. I said little, but said twas not five Moneths 
since I buried my dear Wife. Had said before 'twas 
hard to know whether best to marry again or no; whom 
to marry. . . ."^ " July 7, 1718. ... At night, when 
all were gone to bed. Cousin Moodey went with me into 
the new Hall, read the History of Rebekah's Courtship, 
and pray'd with me respecting my Widowed Condi- 
tion."io 

Thus urged to it, the lonely Judge pays court to Mrs. 
Denison but she will not have him. Naturally he has 
little to say about the rejection; but evidently, with 
undiscouraged spirit, he soon turns elsewhere and with 
success; for under date of October 29, 1719, we come 
across this entry: " Thanksgiving Day: between 6 and 
7 Brother Moody & I went to Mrs. Tilley's, and about 7 
or 8 were married by Mr. J. Sewall, in the best room 
below stairs. Mr. Prince prayed the second time. 
Mr. Adams, the minister at Newington was there, Mr. 
Oliver and Mr. Timothy Clark. . . . Sung the 12, 13, 
14, 15 and 16 verses of the 90th Psalm. Cousin S. 
Sewall set Low-Dutch tune in a very good key. . . . 
Distributed cake. . . ."^^ 

But his happiness was short-lived; for in May of the 
next year this wife died, and, without wasting time in 
sentimental repining, he was soon on the search for a 

• Diarv: Vol. Ill, p. 176. 
io Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 180. 
" Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 232. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 253 

new companion. In August he was calling on Madam 
Winthrop and approached the subject with considerable 
subtlety: ". , . Spake to her, saying, my loving wife 
died so soon and suddenly, 'twas hardly convenient for 
me to think of marrying again; however I came to this 
resolution, that I would not make my court to any 
person without first consulting with her."^^ Two 
months later he said: " At last I pray'd that Catherine 
[Mrs. Winthrop] might be the person assign'd for me. 
. . . She . . . took it up in the way of denial, saying 
she could not do it before she was asked. "^^ 

But, as stated above. Madam Winthrop was rather 
capricious and, in popular parlance, she " kept him 
guessing." Thus, we read: 

" Madam seem'd to harp upon the same string. . . . 
Must take care of her children; could not leave that 
house and neighborhood where she had dwelt so long. 
... I gave her a piece of Mr. Belcher's cake and ginger- 
bread wrapped up in a clean sheet of paper. . . ."^^ 

" In the evening I visited Madam Winthrop, who 
treated me with a great deal of courtesy; wine, marma- 
lade. I gave her a News-Letter about the Thanks- 
giving. . . ."^^ 

Two days later: " Madam Winthrop's countenance 
was much changed from what 'twas on Monday. Look'd 
dark and lowering. . . . Had some converse, but very 
cold and indifferent to what 'twas before. . . . She sent 
Juno home with me, with a good lantern. . . ." 

A week passed, and " in the evening I visited Madam 
Winthrop, who treated me courteously, but not in clean 

12 Diary: Vol. III. p. 262. 
i» Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 265. 
" Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 266. 



254 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

linen as sometimes. . . . Juno came home with 
me. . ."15 

Again, several days later, he seeks the charming 
widow, and finds her '' out." He goes in search of her. 
Finding her, he remains a few minutes, then suggests 
going home. "... She found occasion to speak 
pretty earnestly about my keeping a coach: . . . She 
spake something of my needing a wig. . . ."^^ 

Two days later when calling: "... I rose up at 11 
o'clock to come away, saying I would put on my coat, 
she offer'd not to help me. I pray'd her that Juno might 
light me home, she open'd the shutter, and said 'twas 
pretty hght abroad: Juno was weary and gone to bed. 
So I came home by star-light as well as I could. . . ."i" 

The Judge was persistent, however, and called again. 
" I asked Madam what fashioned neck-lace I should 
present her with; she said none at all."^^ Evidently 
such coolness chilled the ardor of his devotion, and he 
records but one more visit of a courting nature. " Give 
her the remnant of my almonds; she did not eat of 
them as before; but laid them away. . . . The fire 
was come to one short brand besides the block ... at 
last it fell to pieces, and no recruit was made." The 
judge took the hint. " Took leave of her. . . . Treated 
me courteously. . . . Told her she had enter'd the 
4th year of widowhood. . . . Her dress was not so clean 
as sometime it had been. Jehovah jireh."^^ 

A little later he turned his attention toward a Mrs. 
Ruggles; but by this time the Judge was known as a 

« Diary: Vol. III. p. 269. 
^* Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 271. 
I'Vol. Ill, p. 274. 
i» Diary: Vol. III. p. 275. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 255 

persistent suitor, and one hard to discourage, and it 
would seem that Mrs. Ruggles gave him no opportunity 
to push the matter. At length, however, he found his 
heart's desire in a Mrs. Gibbs and, judging from his 
Diary, was exceedingly pleased with his choice. 

///. Liberty to Choose 

It seems clear that the virgin, as well as the widow, was 
given considerable hberty in making up her own mind 
as to the choice of a life mate, and any general conclu- 
sions that colonial women were practically forced into 
uncongenial marriages by the command of parents has 
no documentary evidence whatever. For instance, 
Ehza Pinckney wrote in reply to her father's inquiry 
about her marriageable possibilities: 

" As you propose Mr. L. to me I am sorry I can't have 
Sentiments favourable enough to him to take time to 
think on the Subject, as your Indulgence to me will 
ever add weight to the duty that obliges me to consult 
that best pleases you, for so much Generosity on your 
part claims all my Obedience. But as I know 'tis my 
Happiness you consult, I must beg the favour of you to 
pay my compliments to the old Gentleman for his 
Generosity and favorable Sentiments of me, and let him 
know my thoughts on the affair in such civil terms as you 
know much better than I can dictate; and beg leave to 
say to you that the riches of Chili and Peru put together, 
if he had them, could not purchase a sufficient Esteem for 
him to make him my husband. 

" As to the other Gentleman you mention, Mr. W., 
you know, sir, I have so slight a knowledge of him I can 
form no judgment, and a case of such consequence 



256 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

requires the nicest distinction of humours and Senti- 
ments. 

" But give me leave to assure you, my dear Sir, that 
a single life is my only Choice; — and if it were not as I 
am yet but eighteen hope you will put aside the thoughts 
of my marrying yet these two or three years at least. 

" You are so good as to say you have too great an 
opinion of my prudence to think I would entertain an 
indiscreet passion for any one, and I hope Heaven will 
direct me that I may never disappoint you. . . ."^' 

Even timid, shrinking Betty Sewall, who as a child 
was so troubled over her spiritual state, was not forced 
to accept an uncongenial mate; although, of course, the 
old judge thought she must not remain in the unnatural 
condition of a spinster. When she was seventeen her 
first suitor appeared, with her father's permission, of 
course; for the Judge had investigated the young man's 
financial standing, and had found him worth at least 
£600. To prepare the girl for the ordeal, her father 
took her into his study and read her the story of the 
mating of Adam and Eve, " as a soothing and alluring 
preparation for the thought of matrimony." But poor 
Betty, frightened out of her wits, fled as the hour for the 
lover's appearance neared, and hid in a coach in the 
stable. The Judge duly records the incident: "Jany 
Fourth-day, at night Capt. Tuthill comes to speak with 
Betty, who hid herself all alone in the coach for several 
hours till he was gone, so that we sought at several 
houses, then at last came in of her self, and look'd very 
wild."2o 

"Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 55. 
^0 Diary: Vol. III. p. 491. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 257 

Necessarily, this suitor was dismissed, and a Mr. 
Hirst next appeared, but Betty could not consent to his 
courtship, and the father mournfully notes the belief 
that this second young man had " taken his final leave." 
A few days later, however, the Judge writes her as fol- 
lows: 

" Mr. Hirst waits upon you once more to see if you 
can bid him welcome. It ought to be seriously con- 
sidered, that your drawing back from him after all that 
has passed between you, will be to your Prejudice; 
and will tend to discourage persons of worth from making 
their Court to you. And you had need to consider 
whether you are able to bear his final Leaving of you, 
howsoever it may seem gratefull to you at present. 
When persons come toward us, we are apt to look upon 
their Undesirable Circumstances mostly; and therefore 
to shun them. But when persons retire from us for 
good and all, we are in danger of looking only on that 
which is desirable in them to our woefull Disquiet. 
... I do not see but that the Match is well liked by 
judicious persons, and such as are your Cordial Friends, 
and mine also. 

'* Yet notwithstanding, if you find in yourself an 
imovable incurable Aversion from him, and cannot love, 
and honour, and obey him, I shall say no more, nor give 
you any further trouble in this matter. It had better 
be off than on. So praying God to pardon us, and pity 
our Undeserving, and to direct and strengthen and settle 
you in making a right Judgment, and giving a right 
Answer, I take leave, who, am, dear child, your loving 
father. . . ."^i 

« Sewall's Letter-Book, Col. I. p. 213. 



258 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

IV. The Banns and the Ceremony 

After the formal engagemelit, when the dowry and 
contract had been agreed upon and signed, the pubhshing 
of the banns occurred. Probably this custom was 
general throughout the colonies; indeed, the Church of 
England required it in Virginia and South Carolina; 
the Catholics demanded it in Maryland; the Dutch in 
New York and the Quakers in Pennsylvania sanctioned 
it. Sewall mentions the ceremony several times, and 
evidently looked upon it as a proper, if not a required, 
procedure. 

And who performed the marriage ceremony in those 
old days? To-day most Americans look upon it as an 
office of the clergyman, although a few turn to a civil 
officer in this hour of need ; but in the early years of the 
Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies it is highly 
probable that only a magistrate was allowed to marry 
the contracting parties. Those first American Puritans 
had a fear of church ceremony, and for some years 
conducted both weddings and funerals without the 
formal services of a preacher. By Judge Sewall's time, 
either clergyman or magistrate might perform the oflBce; 
but all symptoms of formality or worldly pomp were 
frowned upon, and the union was made generally with 
the utmost simplicity and quietness. We may turn 
again to the Judge's Diary for brief pictures of the 
equally brief ceremony: 

" Tuesday, 1688. Mr. Nath. Newgate Marries Mr. 
Lynds Daughter before Mr. Ratcliff, with Church of 
England Ceremonies. "^^ 

"Thorsday, Oct. 4th, 1688. About 5 P. M. Mr. 

22 Diary: Vol. I, p. 216. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 259 

Willard (the pastor) married Mr. Samuel Danforth and 
Mrs. Hannah Allen."23 

" Feb. 24, 1717-8, In the evening I married Joseph 
Marsh. ... I gave them a glass of Canary." 

" Apr. 4, 1718. ... In the evening I married Chas- 
ling Warrick and Esther Bates. . . ."^4 

It seems that the Judge himself inclined toward the 
view that a wedding was essentially a civil, and not an 
ecclesiastical affair, and he even went so far as to intro- 
duce a rule having certain magistrates chosen for the 
duty, but, unluckily, the preachers won the contest and 
almost took this particular power away from the civil 
officers. The Judge refers thus to the matter: " Nov. 
4, 1692. Law passes for Justices and Ministers Marry- 
ing Persons. By order of the Committee, I had drawn 
up a Bill for Justices and such others as the Assembly 
should appoint to marry; but came new-drawn and thus 
alter'd from the Deputies. It seems they count the 
respect of it too much to be left any longer with the 
Magistrate. And Salaries are not spoken of; as if one 
sort of Men might Uve on the Aer. . . ."^^ Apparently 
up to this date the magistrates had possessed rather a 
monopoly on the marriage market, and Sewall was 
justly worried over this new turn in affairs. Betty, 
however, who had finally accepted Mr. Hirst, was 
married by a clergyman, as the following entry testifies: 
" Oct. 17, 1700. ... In the following Evening Mr. 
Grove Hirst and EHzabeth Sewall are married by Mr. 
Cotton Mather. "26 



" Diary: Vol. I, p. 228. 
2« Vol. Ill, p. 172. 
" Diary: Vol. I, p. 368. 
» Diary: Vol. II, p. 24. 



260 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

The nearest that the Puritans of the day seem to have 
approached earthly hilarity on such occasions was in the 
serving of simple refreshments. Strange to say, the 
pious Judge almost smacks his lips as he records the 
delicacies served at one of the weddings: " Many of 
the Council went and wish'd Col. Fitch joy of his 
daughter Martha's marriage with Mr. James Allen. 
Had good Bride-Cake, good Wine, Burgundy and 
Canary, good Beer, Oranges, Pears."" Again, in 
recording the marriage of his daughter Judith, he notes 
that " we had our Cake and sack-posset." Still again: 
" May 8th, 1712. At night, Dr. Increase Mather 
married Mr. Sam Gerrish, and Mrs. Sarah Coney; Dr. 
Cotton Mather pray'd last, . . . Had Gloves, Sack- 
Posset, and Cake. . . ."^^ 

Of course, as time went on, the good people of Massa- 
chusetts became more worldly and three quarters of a 
century after Sewall noted the above, some weddings 
had become so noisy that the godly of the old days might 
well have considered such affairs as riotous. For 
example, Judge Pynchon records on January 2, 1781: 
" Tuesday, ... A smart firing is heard today. (Mr. 
Brooks is married to Miss Hathorne, a daughter of Mr. 
Estey), and was as loud, and the rejoicing near as great 
as on the marriage of Robt. Peas, celebrated last year; 
the fiddling, dancing, etc., about equal in each."^* 

V. Matrimonial Restrictions 
Necessarily, the laws dealing with wedlock were 
exceedingly strict in all the colonies; for there were many 

>' Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 364. 
" Diary: Vol. II, p. 347. 
"Diary: p. 82. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 261 

reckless immigrants to America, many of whom had left 
a bad reputation in the old country and were not build- 
ing a better one in the new. It was no uncommon thing 
for men and women who were married in England to 
pose as unmarried in the colonies, and the charge of 
bigamy frequently appears in the court records of the 
period. Sometimes the magistrates '' punished " the 
man by sending him back to his wife in England, but 
there seems to be no record of a similar form of punish- 
ment for a woman who had forgotten her distant spouse. 
Strange to say, there are instances of the fining, month 
by month, of unmarried couples living together as man 
and wife — a device still imitated by some of our city 
courts in dealing with inmates of disorderly houses. 
All in all, the saintly of those old days had good cause for 
believing that the devil was continuously seeking en- 
trance into their domain. 

Some of the laws seem unduly severe. Marriage with 
cousins or other near relatives was frowned upon, and 
even the union of persons who were not considered 
respectable according to the community standard was 
unlawful. Sewall notes his sentiments concerning the 
marriage of close relatives: 

" Dec. 25, 1691. . . . The marriage of Hana Owen 
with her Husband's Brother is declar'd null by the Court 
of Assistants. She commanded not to entertain him; 
enjoin'd to make a Confession at Braintrey before the 
Congregation on Lecture day, or Sabbath, pay Fees of 
Court and prison, & to be dismiss'd. . . ."^^ 

" May 7, 1696. Col. Shrimpton marries his Son to 
his Wive's Sisters daughter, Elisabeth Richardson. 

»» Diary: Vol. I. p. 354. 



262 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

All of the Council in Town were invited to the Wedding, 
and many others. Only I was not spoken to. As I was 
glad not to be there because the lawfuUness of the inter- 
marrying of Cousin-Germans is doubted. . . ."^^ 

VI. Spinsters 

It is a source of astonishment to a modern reader to 
find at what a youthful age girls of colonial days became 
brides. Large numbers of women were wedded at six- 
teen, and if a girl remained home until her eighteenth 
birthday the Puritan parents began to lose hope. There 
were comparatively few unmarried people, and it would 
seem that bachelors and spinsters were viewed with some 
suspicion. The fate of an old maid was indeed a sad one; 
for she must spend her days in the home of her parents 
or of her brothers, or eke out her board by keeping a 
dame's school, and if she did not present a mournful 
countenance the greater part of the populace was 
rather astonished. Note, for instance, the tone of 
surprise in this comment on an eighteenth century 
spinster of Boston: 

" It is true, an old (or superannuated) maid in Boston 
is thought such a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and 
looked on as a dismal spectacle); yet she, by her good 
nature, gravity, and strict virtue, convinces all (so much 
as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her necessity, but her 
choice, that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about thirty 
years (the age which they call a Thornback), yet she 
never disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks of 
Love. She never reads any Plays or Romances, goes to 
no Balls, or Dancing-match, as they do who go (to such 

" Diary: Vol. I, p. 424. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 263 

Fairs) in order to meet with Chapmen. Her looks, her 
speech, her whole behaviour, are so very chaste, that but 
one at Governor's Island, where we went to be merry at 
roasting a hog, going to kiss her, I thought she would 
have blushed to death. 

" Our Damsel knowing this, her conversation is 
generally amongst the Women ... so that I found it no 
easy matter to enjoy her company, for some of her time 
(save what was taken up in Needle-work and learning 
French, etc.) was spent in Religious Worship. She 
knew Time was a dressing-room for Eternity, and there- 
fore reserves most of her hours for better uses than those 
of the Comb, the Toilet, and the Glass. "^^ 

VII. Separation and Divorce 
It may be a matter of surprise to the ultra-modern 
that there were not, in those days, more old maids or 
women who hesitated long before entering into matri- 
mony, for marriage was almost invariably for life. 
There were, of course, some separations, and now and 
then a divorce, but since unfaithfulness was practically 
the only reason that a court would consider, there was 
but little opportunity for the exercise of this modern 
legal form of freedom. Moreover, the magistrates ruled 
that the guilty person might not remarry; but although 
they strove zealously in some sections to enforce this 
rule, the rougher members of society easily evaded it by 
moving into another colony. Sewall makes mention of 
applications for divorce; but when such a catastrophe 
seemed imminent in his own family he opposed it 
strongly. 

•2 Weeden: Economic, & Social Hiaiory of N. Eng., Vol. I, p. 299. 



264) Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Let us examine this case, not for the purpose of impu- 
dently staring at the family skeleton in the good old 
Judge's closet, but that we may see that wedlock was not 
always " one glad, sweet song," even in Puritan days. 
His eldest son Samuel had such serious difficulties with 
the woman whom he married that at length the couple 
separated and lived apart for several years. The pious 
judge worried and fretted over the scandal for a long 
while; but, of course, such affairs will happen in even 
the best of families. The record of the marriage runs 
as follows: "September 15, 1702. Mr. Nehemiah 
Walter marries Mr. Sam. Sewall and Mrs. Rebekah 
Dudley." Evidently Mrs. Rebekah Dudley Sewall was 
not so meek as the average Puritan wife is generally 
pictured; for on February 13, 1712, the judge noted: 
" When my daughter alone, I ask'd her what might be 
the cause of my Son's Indisposition, are you so kindly 
affectioned one towards one another as you should be? 
She answer 'd I do my Duty. I said no more. . . ."^^ 

Six days later the troubled father wrote: " Lecture- 
day, son S. Goes to Meeting, speaks to Mr. Walter. I 
also speak to him to dine. He could not; but said he 
would call before he went home. When he came he 
discours'd largly with my son. . . , Friends talk to 
them both, and so come together again. "^^ 

Two days later: " Daughter Sewall calls and gives us 
a visit; I went out to carry my Letters to Savil's. . . . 
While I was absent. My Wife and Daughter Sewall had 
very sharp discourse; She wholly justified herself, and 
said, if it were not for her, no Maid could be able to 
dwell at their house. At last Daughter Sewall burst out 

" Vol. II, p. 371. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 265 

with Tears, and call'd for the Calash. My wife relented 
also, and said she did not design to grieve her."^'* 

Evidently affairs went from bad to worse, even to the 
point where Sam ate his meals alone and probably pre- 
pared them too; for the Judge at length notes in his 
Diary: " I goe to Brooklin, meet my daughter Sewall 
going to Roxbury with Hanah. . . . Sam and I dined 
alone. Daughter return'd before I came away. I 
propounded to her that Mr. Walter (the pastor) might 
be desired to come to them and pray with them. She 
seemed not to like the notion, said she knew not where- 
fore she should be call'd before a Minister. ... I 
urg'd him as the fittest Moderator; the Govr. or I 
might be thought partial. She pleaded her performance 
of Duty, and how much she had born. . . ."'^ 

It is apparent that the spirit of independence, if not of 
stubbornness, was strong in Mrs. Samuel, Jr. At 
length, what seems to have been the true motive, jealousy 
on the part of the husband, appears in the record by the 
father, and from all the evidence Samuel might well be 
jealous, as future events will show. To return to the 
Diary: " Sam and his Wife dine here, go home together 
in the Calash. William Ilsly rode and pass'd by them. 
My son warn'd him not to lodge at his house; Daughter 
said she had as much to doe with the house as he. Ilsly 
lodg'd there. Sam grew so ill on Satterday, that instead 
of going to Roxbury he was fain between Meetings to 
take his Horse, and come hither; to the surprise of his 
Mother who was at home. . . ."^® A few days later: 
" Sam is something better; yet full of pain; He told me 

"Diorj/. Vol. II, p. 371. 
" Vol. II, p. 400. 
»8 Vol. II. p. 405. 



266 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

with Tears that these sorrows would bring him to his 
Grave. . . ."" 

It appears that the daughter-in-law was, for the most 
part, silent but vigilant; for about five weeks after the 
above entry Judge Sewall records: " My Son Joseph and 
I visited my Son at Brookhn, sat with my Daughter in 
the chamber some considerable time, Drank Cider, eat 
Apples. Daughter said nothing to us of her Griev- 
ances, nor we to her. . . ."^^ The lady, however, while 
she might control her tongue, could not control her pen, 
and just when harmony was on the point of being 
restored, a letter from her gave the affair a most serious 
backset. " Son Sewall intended to go home on the 
Horse Tom brought, sent some of his Linen by him; 
but when I came to read his wive's letter to me, his 
Mother was vehemently against his going: and I was 
for considering. . . . Visited Mr. Walter, staid long 
with him, read my daughters Letters to her Husband 
and me; yet he still advis'd to his going home. . . . 
My wife can't yet agree to my Son's going home. . . ."^^ 

Sam seems to have remained at his father's home. 
The matter was taken up by the parents, apparently 
in the hope that they with their greater wisdom might 
be able to bring about an understanding. " Went 
a foot to Roxbury. Govr. Dudley was gon to his Mill. 
Staid till he came home. I acquainted him what my 
Business was; He and Madam Dudley both reckon'd 
up the Offenses of my Son; and He the Virtues of his 
Daughter. And alone, mention'd to me the hainous 
faults of my wife, who the very first word ask'd my 

»' Vol. II, p. 406. 

»' Diary: Vol. Ill, p 31. 

«« Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 40. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 267 

daughter why she married my Son except she lov'd 
him? I saw no possibihty of my Son's return; and 
therefore asked that he would make some Proposals, 
and so left it. . . ."^'^ 

Thus the months lengthened into years, and still the 
couple were apart. Meanwhile the scandal was in- 
creased by the birth of a child to the wife. Samuel had 
left her on January 22, 1714, and did not return to her 
until March 3, 1718; apparently the child was born 
during the summer of 1717. The Judge, in sore straits, 
records on August 29, 1717: " Went, according, after a 
little waiting on some Probat business to Govr. Dudley. 
I said my Son had all along insisted that Caution should 
be given, that the infant lately born should not be 
chargeable to his Estate. Govr. Dudley no ways came 
into it; but said 'twas best as 'twas, no body knew whose 
'twas [word illegible], to bring it up."" 

Whether or not the disgrace shortened the life of 
Mother Sewall we shall never know; but the fact is 
recorded that she died on October 23, 1717. There 
follows a rather lengthy silence concerning Sam's affairs, 
and at length on February 24, 1718, we note the fol- 
lowing good news: " My Son Sam Sewall and his Wife 
Sign and Seal the Writings in order to my Son's going 
home. Govr. Dudley and I Witnesses, Mr. Sam Lynde 
took the Acknowledgment. I drank to my Daughter in 
a Glass of Canary. Govr. Dudley took me into the Old 
Hall and gave me £100 in Three-pound Bills of Credit, 
new ones, for my Son, told me on Monday, he would 
perform all that he had promised to Mr. Walter. Sam 

*« Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 108. 
" Diary: Vol. Ill, p. 137. 



268 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

agreed to go home next Monday, his wife sending the 
Horse for him. Joseph pray'd with his Bror and me. 
Note. This was my Wedding Day. The Lord succeed 
and turn to good what we have been doing. . . ."^^ 

Is it not evident that at least in some instances women 
in colonial days were not the meek and sweetly humble 
creatures so often described in history, fiction, and verse? 

VIII. Marriage in Pennsylvania 
If there was any approach toward laxness in the 
marriage laws of the colonies, it may have been in 
Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin confesses very frankly 
that his wife's former husband had deserted her, and that 
no divorce had been obtained. There was a decidedly 
indefinite rumor that the former spouse had died, and 
Ben considered this sufficient. The case was even more 
complicated, but perhaps Franklin thought that one ill 
cured another. As he states in his Autobiography: 
" Our mutual affection was revived, but there were 
no great objections to our union. The match was indeed 
looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being said to 
be living in England; but this could not easily be prov'd, 
because of the distance, and tho' there was a report of 
his death, it was not certain. Then, tho' it should be 
true, he had left many debts, which his successor might 
be call'd upon to pay. We ventured, however, over all 
these difficulties, and I took her to wife Sept. 1st, 1730."" 
Among the Quakers the marriage ceremony consisted 
simply of the statement of a mutual pledge by the 
contracting parties in the presence of the congregation, 

*i Diary: Vol. III. p. 173. 
43 Writings, Vol. I, p. 310. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 269 

and, this being done, all went quietly about their busi- 
ness without ado or merry-making. The pledge recited 
by the first husband of Dolly Madison was doubtless a 
typical one among the Friends of Pennsylvania: " * I, 
John Todd, do take thee, Dorothea Payne, to be my 
wedded wife, and promise, through divine assistance, to 
be unto thee a loving husband, until separated by death.* 
The bride in fainter tones echoed the vow, and then the 
certificate of marriage was read, and the register signed 
by a number of witnesses. . . ."^'* 

Doubtless the courtship among these early Quakers 
was brief and calm, but among the Moravians of the 
same colony it was so brief as to amount to none at all. 
Hear Franklin's description of the manner of choosing a 
wife in this curious sect: " I inquir'd concerning the 
Moravian marriages, whether the report was true that 
they were by lot. I was told that lots were us'd only in 
particular cases; that generally, when a young man 
found himself dispos'd to marry, he inform'd the elders 
of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that govern'd 
the young women. As these elders of the different 
sexes were well acquainted with the temper and disposi- 
tions of the respective pupils, they could best judge what 
matches were suitable, and their judgments were gener- 
ally acquiesc'd in; but, if, for example, it should happen 
that two or three young women were found to be equally 
proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to. 
I objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual 
choice of the parties, some of them may chance to be 
very unhappy. ' And so they may,' answer'd my 
informer, ' if j^ou let the parties chuse for themselves.' "*^ 

♦< Goodwin: Dolly Madison, p. 33. 
« Smyth: Franklin, Vol. I, p. 413. 



270 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

We have seen that the Dutch of New York did let 
them " chuse for themselves," even while they were yet 
children. The forming of the children into companies, 
and the custom of marrying within a particular company 
seemingly was an excellent plan; for it appears that as 
the years passed the children grew toward each other; 
they learned each others likes and dislikes; they had 
become true helpmates long before the wedding. As 
Mrs. Grant observes: " Love, undiminished by any 
rival passion, and cherished by innocence and candor, 
was here fixed by the power of early habit, and strength- 
ened by similarity of education, tastes, and attach- 
ments. Inconstancy, or even indifference among mar- 
ried couples, was unheard of, even where there happened 
to be a considerable disparity in point of intellect. The 
extreme affection they bore to their mutual offspring 
was a bond that for ever endeared them to each other. 
Marriage in this colony was always early, very often 
happy. When a man had a son, there was nothing to be 
expected with a daughter, but a well brought-up female 
slave, and the furniture of the best bedchamber. . . ."*^ 

IX. Marriage in the South 
In colonial Virginia and South Carolina weddings were 
seldom, if ever, performed by a magistrate; the public 
sentiment created by the Church of England demanded 
the offices of a clergyman. Far more was made of a 
wedding in these Southern colonies than in New England, 
and after the return from the church, the guests often 
made the great mansion shake with their merry-making. 
No aristocratic marriage would have been complete 

** Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 53. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 271 

without dancing and hearty refreshments, and many a 
new match was made in celebrating a present one. 

The old story of how the earlier settlers purchased 
their wives with from one hundred twenty to one hundred 
fifty pounds of tobacco per woman — a pound of sot- 
weed for a pound of flesh, — is too well known to need 
repetition here; suffice to say it did not become a custom. 
Nor is there any reason to believe that marriages thus 
brought about were any less happy than those resulting 
from prolonged courtships. These girls were strong, 
healthy, moral women from crowded England, and they 
came prepared to do their share toward making domestic 
life a success. American books of history have said 
much about the so-called indented women who promised 
for their ship fare from England to serve a certain number 
of months or years on the Virginia plantations; but the 
early records of the colonies really offer rather scant 
information. This was but natural; for such women 
had but httle in common with the ladies of the aristo- 
cratic circle, and there was no apparent reason for writing 
extensively about them. But it should not be thought 
that they were always rough, uncouth, enslaved crea- 
tures. The great majority were decent women of the 
Enghsh rural class, able and willing to do hard work, 
but unable to find it in England. Many of them, after 
serving their time, married into respectable famihes, 
and in some instances reared children who became men 
and women of considerable note. There can be little 
doubt that while paying for their ship-fare they labored 
hard, and sometimes were forced to mingle with the 
negroes and the lowest class of white men in heavy toil. 
John Hammond, a Marylander, who had great admira- 



272 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

tion for his adopted land, tried to ignore this point, but 
the evidence is rather against him. Says he in his 
Leah and Rachel of 1656: 

" The Women are not (as is reported) put into the 
ground to worke, but occupie such domestique imploy- 
ments and housewifery as in England, that is dressing 
victuals, righting up the house, milking, imployed about 
dayries, washing, sowing, etc., and both men and women 
have times of recreations, as much or more than in any 
part of the world besides, yet some wenches that are 
nasty, beastly and not fit to be so imployed are put into 
the ground, for reason tells us, they must not at charge 
be transported, and then maintained for nothing." 

Of course among the lower rural classes not only of the 
South, but of the Middle Colonies, a wedding was an 
occasion for much coarse joking, horse-play, and rough 
hilarity, such as bride-stealing, carousing, and hideous 
serenades with pans, kettles, and skillet lids. Especially 
was this the case among the farming class of Connecti- 
cut, where the marriage festivities frequently closed with 
damages both to person and to property. 

X. Romance in Marriage 

Perhaps to the modern woman the colonial marriage, 
with its fixed rules of courtship, the permission to court, 
the signed contract and the dowry, seems decidedly 
commonplace and unromantic; but, after all, this is not 
a true conclusion. The colonists loved as ardently as 
ever men and women have, and they found as much joy, 
and doubtless of as lasting a kind, in the union, as we 
moderns find. Many bits of proof might be cited. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 273 

Hear, for instance, how Benedict Arnold proposed to 
his beloved Peggy: 

" Dear Madam: Twenty times have I taken up my 
pen to write to you, and as often has my trembhng hand 
refused to obey the dictates of my heart — a heart 
which, though calm and serene amidst the clashing of 
arms and all the din and horrors of war, trembles with 
diffidence and the fear of giving offence when it attempts 
to address you on a subject so important to his happiness. 
Dear Madam, your charms have hghted up a flame in 
my bosom which can never be extinguished; your 
heavenly image is too deeply impressed ever to be 
effaced. . . . 

" On you alone my happiness depends, and will you 
doom me to languish in despair? Shall I expect no 
return to the most sincere, ardent, and disinterested 
passion? Do you feel no pity in your gentle bosom for 
the man who would die to make you happy? . . . 

" Consider before you doom me to misery, which I 
have not deserved but by loving you too extravagantly. 
Consult your own happiness, and if incompatible, forget 
there is so unhappy a wretch; for may I perish if I 
would give you one moment's inquietude to purchase the 
greatest possible felicity to myself. Whatever my fate 
is, my most ardent wish is for your happiness, and my 
latest breath will be to implore the blessing of heaven 
on the idol and only wish of my soul. . . ." 

And Alexander Hamilton wrote this of his " Betty ": 
" I suspect . . . that if others knew the charm of 
my sweetheart as I do, I would have a great num- 
ber of competitors. I wish I could give you an idea 
of her. You have no conception of how sweet a girl 



274 Womati's Life in Colonial Days 

she is. It is only in my heart that her image is truly 
drawn. She has a lovely form, and still more lovely 
mind. She is all Goodness, the gentlest, the dearest, 
the tenderest of her sex — Ah, Betsey, How I love 
her. . . ./"^ 

And let those who doubt that there was romance in 
the wooing of the old days read the story of Agnes 
Surrage, the humble kitchen maid, who, while scrubbing 
the tavern floor, attracted the attention of handsome 
Harry Frankland, custom officer of Boston, scion of a 
noble English family. With a suspiciously sudden 
interest in her, he obtained permission from her parents 
to have her educated, and for a number of years she was 
given the best training and culture that money could 
purchase. Then, when she was twenty-four, Frankland 
wished to marry her; but his proud family would not 
consent, and even threatened to disinherit him. The 
couple, in despair, defied all conventionalities, and Frank- 
land took her to live with him at his Boston residence. 
Conservative Boston was properly scandalized — so 
much so that the lovers retired to a beautiful country 
home near the city, where for some time they lived in 
what the New Englanders considered ungodly happi- 
ness. Then the couple visited England, hoping that the 
elder Franklands would forgive, but the family snubbed 
the beautiful American, and made life so unpleasant for 
her that young Frankland took her to Madrid. Finally 
at Lisbon the crisis came ; for in the terrors of the famous 
earthquake he was injured and separated from her, and 
in his misery he vowed that when he found her, he would 
marry her in spite of all. This he did, and upon their 

''Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 185. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 275 

return to Boston they were received as kindly as before 
they had been scornfully rejected. 

Mrs. Frankland became a prominent member of 
society, was even presented at Court, and for some years 
was looked upon as one of the most lovable women 
residing in London. Wlien in 1768 her husband died, 
she returned to America, and made her home at Boston, 
where in Revolutionary days she suffered so greatly 
through her Tory incHnations that she fled once more to 
England. What more pleasing romance could one 
want? It has all the essentials of the old-fashioned 
novel of love and adventure. 

XL Feminine Independence 
Certainly in the above instance we have once more an 
independence on the part of colonial woman certainly 
not emphasized in the books on early American history. 
As Humphreys says in Catherine Schuyler: " The inde- 
pendence of the modern girl seems pale and ineffectual 
beside that of the daughters of the Revolution." There 
is, for instance, the saucy woman told of in Garden's 
Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War: " Mrs. Daniel Hall, 
having obtained permission to pay a visit to her mother 
on John's Island, was on the point of embarking, when 
an officer, stepping forward, in the most authoritative 
manner, demanded the key of her trunk. ' What do 
you expect to find there? ' said the lady. ' I seek for 
treason,' was the reply. ' You may save yourself the 
trouble of searching, then,' said Mrs. Hall; ' for you can 
find a plenty of it at my tongue's end.' " 

The daughters of General Schuyler certainly showed 
independence; for of the four, only one, Elisabeth, wife 



276 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

of Hamilton, was married with the father's consent, and 
in his home. Shortly after the battle of Saratoga the 
old warrior announced the marriage of his eldest daughter 
away from home, and showed his chagrin in the following 
expression: " Carter and my eldest daughter ran off 
and were married on the 23rd of July. Unacquainted 
with his family connections and situation in life, the 
matter was exceedingly disagreeable, and I signified it to 
them." Six years later, the charming Peggy eloped, 
when there was no reason for it, with Steven Rensselaer, 
a man who afterwards became a powerful leader in New 
York commercial and political movements. The third 
escapade, that of Cornelia, was still more romantic; 
for, having attended the wedding of Eliza Morton in 
New Jersey, she met the bride's brother and promptly 
fell in love with him. Her father as promptly refused to 
sanction the match, and demanded that the girl have 
nothing to do with the young man. One evening not 
long afterwards, as Humphreys describes it, two muffled 
figures appeared under Miss Cornelia's window. At a 
low whistle, the window softly opened, and a rope was 
thrown up. Attached to the rope was a rope ladder, 
which, making fast, like a veritable heroine of romance 
the bride descended. They were driven to the river, 
where a boat was waiting to take them across. On the 
other side was the coach-and-pair. They were then 
driven thirty miles across country to Stockbridge, where 
an old friend of the Morton family lived. The afi'air 
had gone too far. The Judge sent for a neighboring 
minister, and the runaways were duly married. So 
flagrant a breach of the paternal authority was not to 
be hastily forgiven. ... As in the case of the other run- 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 277 

aways, the youthful Mortons disappointed expectation, 
by becoming important householders and taking a 
prominent place in the social life of New York, where 
Washington Morton achieved some distinction at the 
bar/'-'s 

It is evident that in affairs of love, if not in numerous 
other phases of life, colonial women had much liberty, 
and if the liberty were denied them, took affairs into 
their own hands, and generally attained their heart's 
desire. 

XII. Matrimonial Advice 

Through the letters of the day many hints have come 
down to us of what colonial men and women deemed 
important in matters of love and marriage. Thus, we 
find Washington writing Nelly Custis, warning her to 
beware of how she played with the human heart — 
especially her own. Women wrote many similar warn- 
ings for the benefit of their friends or even for the benefit 
of themselves. Jane Turell early in the eighteenth 
century went so far as to write down a set of rules govern- 
ing her own conduct in such affairs, and some of these 
have come down to us through her husband's Memoir 
of her: 

" I would admit the addresses of no person who is not 
descended of pious and credible parents. 

" Who has not the character of a strict moralist, sober, 
temperate, just and honest. 

" Diligent in his business, and prudent in matters. 
Of a sweet and agreeable temper; for if he be owner of 
all the former good qualifications, and fails here, my life 
will be still uncomfortable." 

" Catherine Schuyler: p. 204. 



278 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Whether the first of these rules would have amounted 
to anything if she had suddenly been attracted by a man 
of whose ancestry she knew nothing, is doubtful; but 
the catalog of regulations shows at least that the girls of 
colonial days did some thinking for themselves on the 
subject of matrimony, and did not leave the matter 
to their elders to settle. 

XIII. Matrimonial Irregularities 
There is one rather unpleasant phase of the marriage 
question of colonial days that we may not in justice 
omit, and that is the irregular marriage or union and the 
punishment for it and for the violation of the marriage 
vow. No small amount of testimony from diaries and 
records has come down to us to prove that such irregulari- 
ties existed throughout all the colonies. Indeed, the 
evidence indicates that this form of crime was a constant 
source of irritation to both magistrates and clergy. 

The penalty for adultery in early Massachusetts was 
whipping at the cart's tail, branding, banishment, or 
even death. It is a common impression that the larger 
number of colonists were God-fearing people who led 
upright, blameless lives, and this impression is correct; 
few nations have ever had so high a percentage of men 
of lofty ideals. It is natural, therefore, that such people 
should be most severe in dealing with those who dared to 
lower the high morality of the new commonwealths 
dedicated to righteousness. But even the Puritans and 
Cavaliers were merely human, and crime would enter 
in spite of all efforts to the contrary. Bold adventurers, 
disreputable spirits, men and women with little respect 
for the laws of man or of God, crept into their midst; 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 279 

many of the immigrants to the Middle and Southern 
Colonies were refugees from the streets and prisons of 
London; some of the indented servants had but crude 
notions of morahty; sometimes, indeed, the Old Adam, 
suppressed for generations, broke out in even the most 
respectable of godly families. 

Both Sewall and Winthrop have left records of grave 
offences and transgressions against social decency. 
About 1632 a law was passed in Massachusetts punishing 
adultery with death, and Winthrop notes that at the 
" court of assistants such an act was adopted though 
it could not at first be enforced."*' In 1643 he records: 

" At this court of assistants one James Britton . . . 
and Mary Latham, a proper young woman about 18 
years of age . . . were condemned to die for adultery, 
upon a law formerly made and pubhshed in print. . . ."^° 

A year or two before this he records: " Another case 
fell out about Mr. Maverick of Nottles Island, who had 
been formerly fined £100 for giving entertainment to Mr. 
Owen and one Hale's wife who had escaped out of 
prison, where they had been put for notorious suspicion 
of adultery." The editor adds, " Sarah Hales, the wife 
of William Hales, was censured for her miscarriage to be 
carried to the gallows with a rope about her neck, and 
to sit an hour upon the ladder; the rope's end flung over 
the gallows, and after to be banished. "^^ 

Some women in Massachusetts actually paid the 
penalty of death. Then, too, as late as Sewall's day 
we find mention of severe laws dealing with inter- 
marriage of relatives: " June 14, 1695: The Bill against 

•9 History of New England, Vol. I. p. 73. 

»» History of New England, Vol. 11, p. 190. 

" Winthrop: History of New England, Vol. II, p. 61. 



280 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Incest was passed with the Deputies, four and twenty 
Nos, and seven and twenty Yeas. The Ministers gave 
in their Arguments yesterday, else it had hardly gon, 
because several have married their wives sisters, and the 
Deputies thought it hard to part them. 'Twas con- 
cluded on the other hand, that not to part them, were to 
make the Law abortive, by begetting in people a con- 

ceipt that such Marriages were not against the Law of 
God."52 

The use of the death penalty for adultery seems, how- 
ever, to have ceased before the days of Sewall's Diary: 
for, though he often mentions the crime, he makes no 
mention of such a punishment. The custom of execu- 
tion for far less heinous offences was prevalent in the 
seventeenth century, as any reader of Defoe and other 
writers of his day is well aware, and certainly the Ameri- 
can colonists cannot be blamed for exercising the severest 
laws against offenders of so serious a nature against 
society. The execution of a woman was no unusual act 
anywhere in the world during the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, and the Americans did not hesitate to 
give the extreme penalty to female criminals. Sewall 
rather cold-bloodedly records a number of such execu- 
tions and reveals absolutely no spirit of protest. 

" Thorsday, June 8, 1693. Ehsabeth Emerson of 
Haverhill and a Negro Woman were executed after 
Lecture, for murdering their Infant children. "^^ 

" Monday, 7r, 11th. . . . The Mother of a Bastard 
Child condemn'd for murthering it. . , ."^* 

" Sept. 25th, 1691. Elisabeth Clements of Haverhill 

«2 Diary: Vol II. p. 407. 
" Diary: Vol. I. p. 379. 
**Dia>y: Vol. II, p. 288. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 281 

is tried for murdering her two female bastard chil- 
dren. . . ."65 

" Friday, July 10th, 1685. ... Mr. Stoughton also 
told me of George Car's wife being with child by another 
Man, tells the Father, Major Pike sends her down to 
Prison. Is the Governour's Grandchild by his daughter 
Cotton. . . ."66 

From the court records in Howard's History of Matri- 
monial Institutions we learn: " ' In 1648 the Corte 
acquit Elisa Pennion of the capitall offence charged upon 
her by 2 sevrall inditements for adultery,' but sentence 
her to be ' whiped ' in Boston, and again at ' Linn wthin 
one month.' " " On a special verdict by the jury the 
assistants sentenced Elizabeth Hudson and Bethia 
Bulloine (Bullen) ' married women and sisters,' to ' be 
by the Marshall Generall ... on ye next lecture day 
presently after the lecture carried to the Gallowes & 
there by ye Executioner set on the ladder & with a 
Roape about her neck to stand on the Gallowes an half 
houre & then brought ... to the market place & be 
seriously whipt wth tenn stripes or pay the Sume of 
tenn pounds' standing committed till the sentence be 
performed.' "^'^ 

When punishment by death came to be considered too 
severe and when the crime seemed to deserve more than 
whipping, the guilty one was frequently given a mark of 
disgrace by means of branding, so that for all time any 
one might see and think upon the penalty for such a 
sin. All modern readers are familiar with the Salem 
form — the scarlet letter — made so famous by Haw- 

" Diary: Vol. I. p. 349. 
" Diary: Vol. I. p. 87. 
" P. 170. 



282 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

thorne, a mark sometimes sewed upon the bosom or the 
sleeve of the dress, sometimes burnt into the flesh of the 
breast. Howard, who has made such fruitful search in 
the history of marriage, presents several specimens of 
this strange kind of punishment: 

" In 1639 in Plymouth a woman was sentenced to 

* be whipt at a cart tayle ' through the streets, and to 
' weare a badge upon her left sleeue during her aboad ' 
within the government. If found at any time abroad 
without the badge, she was to be * burned in the face 
wth a hott iron,' Two years later a man and a woman 
for the same offence (adultery) were severely whipped 

* at the publik post ' and condemned while in the colony 
to wear the letters AD ' upon the outside of their vpper- 
most garment, in the most emenent place thereof.' "^' 

" The culprit is to be ' publickly set on the Gallows in 
the Day Time, with a Rope about his or her Neck, for 
the Space of One Hour: and on his or her Return from 
the Gallows to the Gaol, shall be publickly whipped on 
his or her naked Back, not exceeding Thirty Stripes, 
and shall stand committed to the Gaol of the County 
wherein convicted, until he or she shall pay all Costs of 
Prosecution."^^ 

" Mary Shaw the wife of Benjamin Shaw, . . . being 
presented for having a child in September last, about 
five Months after Marriage, appeared and owned the 
same. . . . Ordered that (she) . . . pay a fine of Forty 
Shillings. . . . Costs . . . standing committed."^" 

" Under the * seven months rule,' the culpable parents 
were forced to humble themselves before the whole 

'^History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. II, p. 170. 
"Ibid., p. 172. 
»<>Ibid.. p. 187. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 283 

congregation, or else expose their innocent child to the 
danger of eternal perdition. "^^ 

Many other examples of severe punishment to both 
husband and wife because of the birth of a child before a 
sufficient term of wedlock had passed might be pre- 
sented, and, judging from the frequency of the notices 
and comments on the subject, such social irregularities 
must have been altogether too common. Probably one 
of the reasons for this was the curious and certainly 
outrageous custom known as "bundhng." Irving 
mentions it in his Knickerbocker History of New York, 
but the custom was by no means limited to the small 
Dutch colony. It was practiced in Pennsylvania and 
Connecticut and about Cape Cod. Of all the immoral 
acts sanctioned by conventional opinion of any time this 
was the worst. 

The night following the drawing of the formal con- 
tract in which the dowry and other financial require- 
ments were adjusted, the couple were allowed to retire 
to the same bed without, however, removing their 
clothes. There have been efforts to excuse or explain 
this act on the grounds that it was at first simply an 
innocent custom allowed by a simple-minded people 
living under very primitive conditions. Houses were 
small, there was but one living room, sometimes but one 
general bed-room, poverty restricted the use of candles 
to genuine necessity, and the lovers had but little op- 
portunity to meet alone. All this may have been true, 
but the custom led to deplorable results. Where it 
originated is uncertain. The people of Connecticut 
insisted that it was brought to them from Cape Cod and 

«' Ibid., p. 196. 



284 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

from the Dutch of New York City, and, in return, the 
Dutch declared it began near Cape Cod. The idea 
seems monstrous to us of to-day; but in colonial times 
it was looked upon with much leniency, and adultery 
between espoused persons was punished much more 
lightly than the same crime between persons not engaged. 

A peculiar phase of immorality among colonial women 
of the South cannot well be ignored. As mentioned in 
earlier pages, there was naturally a rough element among 
the indented women imported into Virginia and South 
Carolina, and, strange to say, not a few of these women 
were attracted into sexual relations with the negro slaves 
of the plantation. If these slaves had been mulattoes 
instead of genuinely black, half-savage beings not long 
removed from Africa, or if the relation had been between 
an indented white man of low rank and a negro woman, 
there would not have been so great cause for wonder; 
but we cannot altogether agree with Bruce, who in his 
study. The Economic History of Virginia in the Seven- 
teenth Century, says : 

" It is no ground for surprise that in the seventeenth 
century there were instances of criminal intimacy 
between white women and negroes. Many of the former 
had only recently arrived from England, and were, 
therefore, comparatively free from the race prejudice 
that was so hkely to develop upon close association with 
the African for a great length of time. The class of 
white women who were required to work in the fields 
belonged to the lowest rank in point of character. Not 
having been born in Virginia and not having thus 
acquired from birth a repugnance to association with the 
Africans upon a footing of social equahty, they yielded 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 285 

to the temptations of the situations in which they were 
placed. The oifence, whether committed by a native 
or an imported white woman, was an act of personal 
degradation that was condemned by public sentiment 
with as much severity in the seventeenth century as at 
all subsequent periods. . . ."^^ 

Near the populous centers such relationships were 
sure to meet with swift punishment; but in the more 
remote districts such a custom might exist for years and 
mean nothing less than profit to the master of the planta- 
tion; for the child of negro blood might easily be claimed 
as the slave son of a slave father. Bruce explains 
clearly the attitude of the better classes in Virginia 
toward this mixture of races: 

" A certain degree of liberty in the sexual relations of 
the female servants with the male, and even with their 
master, might have been expected, but there are numer- 
ous indications that the general sentiment of the Colony 
condemned it, and sought by appropriate legislation to 
restrain and prevent it. 

" . . . If a woman gave birth to a bastard, the sheriff, 
as soon as he learned of the fact was required to arrest 
her, and whip her on the bare back until the blood came. 
Being turned over to her master, she was compelled to 
pay two thousand pounds of tobacco, or to remain in his 
employment two years after the termination of her 
indentures. 

" If the bastard child to which the female servant gave 
birth was the offspring of a negro father, she was whipped 
unless the usual fine was paid, and immediately upon the 
expiration of her term was sold by the wardens of the 

»» Vol. I, p. 111. 



286 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

nearest church for a period of five years. . . . The child 
was bound out until his or her thirtieth year had been 
reached. "^^ 

The determined effort to prevent any such unions 
between blacks and whites may be seen in the Virginia 
law of 1691 which declared that any white woman 
marrying a negro or mulatto, bond or free, should suffer 
perpetual banishment. But at no time in the South 
was adultery of any sort punished with such almost 
fiendish cruelty as in New England, except in one known 
instance when a Virginia woman was punished by being 
dragged through the water behind a swiftly moving 
boat. 

The social evil is apparently as old as civilization, and 
no country seems able to escape its bhghting influence. 
Even the Puritan colonies had to contend with it. In 
1638 Josselyn, writing of New England said: "There 
are many strange women too (in Solomon's sense,"). 
Phoebe Kelly, the mother of Madam Jumel, second wife 
of Aaron Burr, made her living as a prostitute, and was 
at least twice (1772 and 1785) driven from disorderly 
resorts at Providence, and for the second offense was 
imprisoned. Ben Franklin frequently speaks of such 
women and of such haunts in Philadelphia, and, with 
characteristic indifference, makes no serious objection 
to them. All in all, in spite of strong hostile influence, 
such as Puritanism in New England, Quakerism in the 
Middle Colonies, and the desire for untainted aristocratic 
blood in the South, the evil progressed nevertheless, and 
was found in practically every city throughout the 
colonies. 

•9 Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. I, p. 34. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 287 

Among men there may not have been any more im- 
morahty than at present, but certainly there was much 
more freedom of action along this line and apparently 
much less shame over the revelations of lax living. 
Men prominent in public life were not infrequently 
accused of intrigues with women, or even known to be 
the fathers of illegitimate children; their wives, families, 
and friends were aware of it, and yet, as we look at the 
comments made at that day, such affairs seem to have 
been taken too much as a matter of course. Benjamin 
Franklin was the father of an illegitimate son, whom he 
brought into his home and whom his wife consented to 
rear. It was a matter of common talk throughout 
Virginia that Jefferson had had at least one son by a 
negro slave. Alexander Hamilton at a time when his 
children were almost grown up was connected with a 
woman in a most wretched scandal, which, while 
provoking some rather violent talk, did not create the 
storm that a similar irregularity on the part of a great 
pubHc man would now cause. Undoubtedly the 
women of colonial days were too lenient in their views 
concerning man's weakness, and naturally men took 
full advantage of such easy forgiveness. 

XIV. Violent Speech and Action 
In general, however, offenses of any other kind, even 
of the most trivial nature, were given much more notice 
than at present; indeed, wrong doers were dragged into 
the lime-light for petty matters that we of to-day would 
consider too insignificant or too private to deserve public 
attention. The English laws of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth century were exceedingly severe; but where 



288 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

these failed to provide for irregular conduct, the Ameri- 
can colonists readily created additional statutes. We 
have seen the legal attitude of early America toward 
witchcraft; gossip, slander, tale-bearing, and rebellious 
speeches were coped with just as confidently. The last 
mentioned " crime," rebellious speech, seems to have 
been rather common in later New England where women 
frequently spoke against the authority of the church. 
Their speech may not have been genuinely rebellious, 
but the watchful Puritans took no chance in matters of 
possible heresy. Thus, Winthrop tells us: " The lady 
Moodye, a wise and anciently religious woman, being 
taken with the error of denying baptism to infants, was 
dealt withal by many of the elders, and others, and 
admonished by the church of Salem, . . . but persist- 
ing still, and to avoid further trouble, etc., she removed 
to the Dutch against the advice of all her friends. . . . 
She was after excommunicated."®'* 

Sometimes, too, the supposedly meek character of the 
colonial woman took a rather Amazonian turn, and the 
court records, diaries, and chronicles present case after 
case in which wives made life for their husbands more of 
a battle cry than one gladsome song. Surely the follow- 
ing citations prove that some colonial dames had opinions 
of their own and strong fists with which to back up their 
opinions : 

" Joan, wife of Obadiah Miller of Taunton, was pre- 
sented for ' beating and revihng her husband, and egging 
her children to healp her, bidding them knock him in the 
head, and wishing his victuals might choake him.' ""^ 

•' History of New England, Vol. II, p. 148. 

" Howard: Matrimonial Inst., Vol. II, p. 161. 



Colonial Woman and Marriage 289 

" In 1637 in Salem, ' Whereas Dorothy the wyfe of 
John Talbie hath not only broak that peace & loue, 
wch ought to hauve beene both betwixt them, but also 
hath violentlie broke the king's peace, by frequent 
laying hands upon hir husband to the danger of his 
Life. ... It is therefore ordered that for hir misde- 
meaner passed & for prvention of future evills . . . 
that she shall be bound & chained to some post where 
shee shall be restrained of her libertye to goe abroad 
or comminge to hir husband, till shee manefest some 
change of hir course. . . . Only it is permitted that shee 
shall come to the place of gods worshipp, to enjoy his 
ordenances.' "^^ 

Women also could appeal to the strong arm of the law 
against the wrath of their loving husbands: '' In 1638 
John Emerson of Scituate was tried before the general 
court for abusing his wife; the same year for beating his 
wife, Henry Seawall was sent for examination before the 
court at Ipswich; and in 1663, Ensigne John Williams, 
of Barnstable, was fined by the Plymouth court for 
slandering his wife."^^ 

Josselyn records that in New England in 1638, "Scolds 
they gag and set them at their doors for certain hours, 
for all comers and goers by to gaze at. . . ." 

In Virginia: " A wife convicted of slander was to be 
carried to the ducking stool to be ducked unless her 
husband would consent to pay the fine imposed by law 
for the offense. . . . Some years after (1646) a woman 
residing in Northampton was punished for defamation 
by being condemned to stand at the door of her parish 

" Howard: Matrimonial Inst., Vol. II, p. 161. 
" Ibid. 



290 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

church, during the singing of the psahn, with a gag in 
her mouth. . . . Deborah Heighram . . . was, in 1654, 
not only required to ask pardon of the person she had 
slandered, but was mulcted to the extent of two thousand 
pounds of tobacco. Alice Spencer, for the same offence, 
was ordered to go to Mrs. Frances Yeardley's house and 
beg forgiveness of her; whilst Edward Hall, who had 
also slandered Mrs. Yeardley, was compelled to pay five 
thousand pounds of tobacco for the county's use, and to 
acknowledge in court that he had spoken falsely."" 

The mere fact that a woman was a woman seems in 
no wise to have caused merciful discrimination among 
early colonists as to the manner of punishment. Appar- 
ently she was treated certainly not better and perhaps 
sometimes worse than the man if she committed an 
offense. In the matter of adultery she indeed frequently 
received the penalty which her partner in sin totally 
escaped. In short, chivalry was not allowed to interfere 
in the least with old-time justice. 

•'Bruce: Institutional History, Vol. I, p. 51. 



CHAPTER VII 

Colonial Woman and the Initiative 

/. Religious Initiative 
Throughout our entire study of colonial woman we 
have seen many bits of record that hint or even plainly 
prove that the feminine nature was no more willing in 
the old days constantly to play second fiddle than in our 
own day. Anne Hutchinson and her kind had brains, 
knew it, and were disposed to use their intellect. Per- 
ceiving injustice in the prevailing order of affairs, such 
women protested against it, and, when forced to do so, 
undertook those tasks and battles which are popularly 
supposed to be outside woman's sphere. Of Anne 
Hutchinson it has been truthfully said: "The Massa- 
chusetts records say that Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was 
banished on account of her revelations and excommuni- 
cated for a lie. They do not say that she was too bril- 
liant, too ambitious, and too progressive for the ministers 
and magistrates of the colony, . . . And while it is 
only fair to the rulers of the colony to admit that any 
element of disturbance or sedition, at that time, was a 
menace to the welfare of the colony, and that . . . 
her voluble tongue was a dangerous one, it is certain 
that the ministers were jealous of her power and feared 
her leadership."^ 

' Brooks: Dimet and Daughltra of Colonial Days, p. 26. 



292 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

One of the earliest examples in colonial times of 
woman's ignoring traditions and taking the initiative 
in dangerous work may be found in the daring invasion 
of Massachusetts by Quaker women to preach their 
behef. Sewall makes mention of seeing such strange 
missionaries in the land of the saints: "July 8, 1677. 
New Meeting House (the third, or South) Mane: In 
Sermon time there came in a female Quaker, in a Canvas 
Frock, her hair disshevelled and loose like a Periwigg, 
her face as black as ink, led by two other Quakers, and 
two others followed. It occasioned the greatest and 
most amazing uproar that I ever saw."^ No doubt 
some of these female exhorters acted outlandishly and 
caused genuine fear among the good Puritan elders for 
the safety of the colonies and the morals of the inhabi- 
tants. 

Those were troubled times. Indeed, between Anne 
Hutchinson and the Quakers, the Puritans of the day 
were harrassed to distraction. Mary Dyer, for example, 
one of the followers of Anne Hutchinson, repeatedly 
driven from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, returned 
just as often, even after being warned that if she came 
back she would be executed. Once she was sentenced 
to death and was saved only by the intercession of her 
husband; but, having returned, she was again sentenced, 
and this time put to death. The Quakers were whipped, 
disfigured by having their ears and nose cut off, banished, 
or even put to death; but fresh recruits, especially 
women, adorned in " sack cloth and ashes " and doing 
" unseemly " things, constantly took the place of those 
who were maimed or killed. Why they should so per- 

« Diary: Vol. I, p. 43. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 293 

sistently have invaded the Puritan territory has been a 
source of considerable questioning; but probably Fiske 
is correct when he says: " The reasons for the persistent 
idea of the Quakers that they must hve in Massachu- 
setts was largely because, though tolerant of differences 
in doctrine, yet Quakerism had freed itself from Judaism 
as far as possible, while Puritanism was steeped in 
Judaism. The former attempted to separate church 
and state, while under the latter belief the two were 
synonimous. Therefore, the Quaker considered it his 
mission to overthrow the Puritan theocracy, and thus 
we find them insisting on returning, though it meant 
death. It was a sacred duty, and it is to the glory of 
religious liberty that they succeeded."^ 

//. Commercial Initiative 
More might be said of the initiative spirit in religion, 
of at least a percentage of the colonial women, but the 
statements above should be sufficient to prove that 
rehgious affairs were not wholly left to the guidance of 
men. And what of women's originality and daring in 
other fields of activity? The indications are that they 
even ventured, and that successfully, to dabble in the 
affairs of state. Sewall mentions that the women were 
even urged by the men to expostulate with the governor 
about his plans for attending a certain meeting house at 
certain hours, and that after the good sisters had thus 
paved the way a delegation of men went to his Excel- 
lency, and obtained a change in his plan. Thus, the 
women did the work, and the men usurped the praise. 
Again, Lady Phips, wife of the governor, had the bravery 

• Dutch and Quaker Colonics in America, Vol. I, p. 112. 



294 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

to assume the responsibility of signing a warrant liberat- 
ing a prisoner accused of witchcraft, and, though the 
jailor lost his position for obeying, the prisoner's life 
was thus saved by the initiative of a woman. 

That colonial women frequently attempted to make a 
livelihood by methods other than keeping a dame school, 
is shown in numerous diaries and records. Sewall 
records the failure of one of these attempts: " April 4, 
1690. . . . This day Mrs. Avery's Shop . . . shut by 
reason of Goods in them attached."* Women kept 
ordinaries and taverns, especially in New England, and 
after 1760 a large number of the retail dry goods stores 
of Baltimore were owned and managed by women. 
We have noticed elsewhere Franklin's compUmentary 
statement about the Philadelphia woman who con- 
ducted her husband's printing business after his death; 
and again in a letter to his wife, May 27, 1757, just before 
a trip to Europe, he writes: " Mr. Golden could not 
spare his Daughter, as she helps him in the Postoffice, 
he having no Clerk."^ Mrs. Franklin, herself, was a 
woman of considerable business ability, and successfully 
ran her husband's printing and trading affairs during his 
prolonged absences. He sometimes mentions in his 
letters her transactions amounting at various times to as 
much as £500. 

The pay given to teachers of dame schools was so 
miserably low that it is a marvel that the widows and 
elderly spinsters who maintained these institutions could 
keep body and soul together on such fees. We know 
that Boston women sometimes taught for less than a 

* Diary: Vol. I, p. 317. 

6 Smyth: Wrilings cf B. Franklin, Vol. Ill, p. 395. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 295 

shilling per day, while even those ladies who took chil- 
dren from the South and the West Indies into their 
homes and both boarded and trained them dared not 
charge much above the actual living expenses. Had not 
public sentiment been against it, doubtless many of 
these teachers would have engaged in the more lucrative 
work of keeping shops or inns. 

In the South it seems to have been no uncommon 
thing for women to manage large plantations and direct 
the labor of scores of negroes and white workers. We 
have seen how Eliza Pinckney found a real interest in 
such work, and cared most successfully for her father's 
thousands of acres. A woman of remarkable person- 
ality, executive ability, and mental capacity, she not 
only produced and traded according to the usual methods 
of planters, but experimented in intensive farming, 
grafting, and improvement of stock and seed with such 
success that her plantations were models for the neigh- 
boring planters to admire and imitate. 

When she was left in charge of the estate while her 
father went about his army duties, she was but sixteen 
years old, and yet her letters to him show not only her 
interest, but a remarkable grasp of both the theoretical 
and the practical phases of agriculture. 

" I wrote my father a very long letter ... on the 
pains I had taken to bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton, 
Lucern, and Cassada to perfection, and had greater 
hopes from the Indigo. . . ." 

To her father: " The Cotton, Guiney corn and most of 
the Ginger planted here was cutt off by a frost. 

" I wrote you in former letters we had a fine crop of 
Indigo Seed upon the ground and since informed you 



296 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

the frost took it before it was dry. I picked out the 
best of it and had it planted but there is not more than 
a hundred bushes of it come up, which proves the more 
unlucky as you have sent a man to make it." 

In a letter to a friend she indicates how busy she is: 
" In genl I rise at five o'clock in the morning, read till 
seven — then take a walk in the garden or fields, see that 
the Servants are at their respective business, then to 
breakfast. The first hour after breakfast is spent in 
musick, the next is constantly employed in recolecting 
something I have learned, . . . such as french and 
shorthand. After that I devote the rest of the time till 
I dress for dinner, to our little Polly, and two black girls, 
who I teach to read. . . . The first hour after dinner, 
as . . . after breakfast, at musick, the rest of the after- 
noon in needlework till candle light, and from that time 
to bed time read or write; . . . Thursday, the whole 
day except what the necessary affairs of the family take 
up, is spent in writing, either on the business of the 
plantations or on letters to my friends. . . ."^ 

And yet this mere girl found time to devote to the 
general conventional activities of women. After her 
marriage she seems to have gained her greatest pleasure 
from her devotion to her household ; but, left a widow at 
thirty-six, she once more was forced to undertake the 
management of a great plantation. The same executive 
genius again appeared, and an initiative certainly sur- 
passing that of her neighbors. She introduced into 
South Carohna the cultivation of Indigo, and through 
her foresight and efforts " it continued the chief highland 
staple of the country for more than thirty years. . . . 

• Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, pp. 7, 9, 30. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 297 

Just before the Revolution the annual export amounted 
to the enormous quantity of one milhon, one hundred 
and seven thousand, six hundred and sixty pounds. 
When will ' New Woman ' do more for her country? "^ 
Martha Washington was another of the colonial 
women who showed not only tact but considerable talent 
in conducting personally the affairs of her large estate 
between the death of her first husband and her marriage 
to Washington, and when the General went on his 
prolonged absences to direct the American army, she, 
with some aid from Lund Washington, attended with 
no small success to the Mount Vernon property. 

III. Woman^s Legal Powers 

Just how much legal power colonial women had is 
rather difficult to discover from the writings of the day; 
for each section had its own peculiar rules, and courts 
and decisions in the various colonies, and sometimes in 
one colony, contradicted one another. Until the adop- 
tion of the Constitution the old English law prevailed, 
and while unmarried women could make deeds, wills, 
and other business transactions, the wife's identity was 
largely merged into that of her husband. The colonial 
husband seems to have had considerable confidence in 
his help-meet's business ability, and not infrequently 
left all his property at his death to her care and manage- 
ment. Thus, in 1793 John Todd left to his widow, the 
future Dolly Madison, his entire estate: 

" I give and devise all my estate, real and personal, 
to the Dear Wife of my Bosom, and first and only Woman 
upon whom my all and only affections were placed, 

' Ravenel: E. Pincknev, p. 107. 



298 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Dolly Payne Todd, her heirs and assigns forever. . . . 
Having a great opinion of the integrity and honourable 
conduct of Edward Burd and Edward Tilghman, 
Esquires, my dying request is that they will give such 
advice and assistance to my dear Wife as they shall 
think prudent with respect to the management and 
disposal of my very small Estate. ... I appoint my 
dear Wife excutrix of this my will. . . ."^ 

Samuel Peters, writing in his General History of 
Connecticut, 1781, mentions this incident: " In 1740, 
Mrs. Cursette, an Enghsh lady, travelling from New 
York to Boston, was obliged to stay some days at 
Hebron; where, seeing the church not finished, and the 
people suffering great persecutions, she told them to 
persevere in their good work, and she would send them a 
present when she got to Boston. Soon after her arrival 
there, Mrs. Cursette fell sick and died. In her will she 
gave a legacy of £300 old tenor ... to the church of 
England in Hebron; and appointed John Hancock, Esq., 
and Nathaniel Glover, her executors. Glover was also 
her residuary legatee. The will was obliged to be re- 
corded in Windham county, because some of Mrs. 
Cursette's lands lay there. Glover sent the will by 

Deacon S. H. of Canterbury, ordering him to get it 

recorded and keep it private, lest the legacy should build 
up the church. The Deacon and Register were faithful 
to their trust, and kept Glover's secret twenty-five years. 
At length the Deacon was taken ill, and his life was 
supposed in great danger; . . . The secret was dis- 
closed." 

It is evident that the colonial woman, either as spinster 

• Graham: Dolly MadUon, p. 46. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 299 

or as widow, was not without considerable legal power 
in matters of property, and it is evident too that she 
now and then managed or disposed of such property 
in a manner displeasing to the other sex. As shown 
in the above incident of the church money, trickery 
was now and then tried in an effort to set aside the 
wishes of a woman concerning her possessions; but, 
in the main, her decisions and bequests seem to have 
received as much respect from courts as those of the 
men, 

A further instance of this feminine right to hold and 
manage property — perhaps a little too radical to be 
typical — is to be found in the career of the famous 
Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman in the world 
to demand a seat in the parliamentary body of a com- 
monwealth. A woman of unusual intellect, decisive- 
ness, and leadership, she came from England to Maryland 
in 1638, and quickly became known as the equal, if not 
the superior, of any man in the colony for comprehension 
of the intricacies of English law dealing with property 
and decedents. Her brothers, owners of great estates, 
recognized her superiority and commonly allowed her to 
buy and sell for them and to sign herself " attorney 
for my brother." Lord Calvert, the Governor, became 
her ardent admirer, perhaps her lover, and when he lay 
dying he called her to his bedside, and in the presence 
of witnesses, made perhaps the briefest will in the 
history of law: " I make you my sole executrix; take 
all and pay all." From that hour her career as a busi- 
ness woman was astonishing. She collected all of Cal- 
vert's rentals and other incomes; she paid all his debts; 
she planted and harvested on his estates; she even took 



300 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

charge of numerous state affairs of Maryland, collected 
and dispersed some portions of the colony's money, and 
was in many ways the colonial executive. 

Then came on January 21, 1648, her astounding de- 
mand for a vote in the Maryland Assembly. Leonard 
Calvert, as Lord Baltimore's attorney, had possessed a 
vote in the body; since Calvert had told her to take all 
and pay all, he had granted her all powers he had ever 
possessed; she therefore had succeeded him as Lord 
Baltimore's attorney and was possessed of the attorney- 
ship until Baltimore saw fit to appoint another; hence, 
as the attorney, she was entitled to a seat and a voice in 
the Assembly. Such was her reasoning, and when she 
walked into the Assembly on that January day it was 
evident from the expression on her face that she intended 
to be seated and to be heard. She made a speech, 
moved many of the planters so greatly that they were 
ready to grant her the right; she cowed the very acting 
governor himself, as he sat on the speaker's bench. 
But that governor's very fear of her rivalry made him, 
for once, active and determined; he had heard whispers 
throughout the colony that she would make a better 
executive than he; he suddenly thundered a decisive 
" No "; a brief recess was declared amidst the ensumg 
confusion; and Margaret Brent went forth for the first 
time in her life a defeated woman. Her power, how- 
ever, was scarcely lessened, and her influence grew to such 
an extent that on several occasions the governor who had 
refused her a vote was obliged to humiliate himself and 
beg her aid in quieting or convincing the citizens. The 
story of her life leads one to believe that many women, 
if opportunity had offered, would have proved them- 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 301 

selves just as capable in business affairs as any woman 
executive of our own times. 

Many another example of feminine initiative might be 
cited. There was that serious, yet ridiculous scene of 
long ago when the women of Boston pinned up their 
dresses, took off their shoes, and waded about in the mud 
and slush fortifying Boston Neck. Benjamin Tompson, 
a local poet, found the incident a source of merriment in 
his New England's Crisis, 1675; but in a way it was a 
stern rebuke to the men who looked on and laughed at 
the women's frantic effort to wield mud plaster. 

" A grand attempt some Amazonian Dames 
Contrive whereby to glorify their names. 
A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe, 
Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf. 
Their nimble hands spin up Uke Christmas pyes, 
Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise . . . 
The wheel at home counts in an hoUday, 
Since while the mistress worketh it may play. 
A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts, 
Forsake at home their pastry crust and tarts, 
To kneed the dirt, the samplers down they hurl, 
Their undulating silks they closely furl. 
The pick-axe one as a commandress holds, 
While t'other at her awk'ness gently scolds. 
One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why 
Can't you promove your work so fast as I? 
Some dig, some delve, and others' hands do feel 
The Uttle wagon's weight with single wheel. 
And lest some fainting-fits the weak surprize. 
They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise . . ." 

That simple-hearted, kindly French- American, St. 
John de Crevecoeur, has left us a description of the 
women of Nantucket in his Letters from an American 



302 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

Farmer, 1782, and if his account is trustworthy these 
women displayed business capacity that might put to 
shame many a modern wife. Hear some extracts from 
his statement: 

" As the sea excursions are often very long, their 
wives in their absence are necessarily obliged to transact 
business, to settle accounts, and, in short, to rule and 
provide for their families. These circumstances, being 
often repeated, give women the abihties as well as a 
taste for that kind of superintendency to which, by their 
prudence and good management, they seem to be in 
general very equal. This employment ripens their 
judgment, and justly entitles them to a rank superior 
to that of other wives; . . . The men at their return, 
weary with the fatigues of the sea, . . . cheerfully give 
their consent to every transaction that has happened 
during their absence, and all is joy and peace. ' Wife, 
thee hast done well,' is the general approbation they 
receive, for their apphcation and industry. . . ." 

". . . But you must not imagine from this account 
that the Nantucket wives are turbulent, of high temper, 
and difficult to be ruled; on the contrary, the wives of 
Sherburn, in so doing, comply only with the prevailing 
custom of the island: the husbands, equally submissive 
to the ancient and respectable manners of their country, 
submit, without ever suspecting that there can be any 
impropriety. . . . The richest person now in the island 
owes all his present prosperity and success to the ingenu- 
ity of his wife: ... for while he was performing his 
first cruises, she traded with pins and needles, and kept 
a school. Afterward she purchased more considerable 
articles, which she sold with so much judgment, that she 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 303 

laid the foundation of a system of business, that she 
has ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and 
success. . . ." 

IV. Patriotic Initiative and Courage 
It was in the dark days of the Revolution that these 
stronger qualities of the feminine soul shone forth, and 
served most happily the struggling nation. Long years 
of Indian warfare and battling against a stubborn wilder- 
ness had strengthened the spirit of the American woman, 
and when the men marched away to defend the land 
their undaunted wives and daughters bravely took up 
the masculine labors, tilling and reaping, directing the 
slaves, maintaining ship and factory, and supplying the 
armies with the necessities of life. The letters written 
by the women in that period reveal an intelligent grasp 
of affairs and a strength of spTit altogether admirable. 
Here was indeed a charming mingling of feminine grace, 
tenderness, sympathy, self-reliance, and common sense. 
It required genuine courage to remain at home, often 
with no masculine protection whatever, with the ever- 
present danger of Indian raids, and there, with the little 
ones, wait and wait, hearing news only at long intervals, 
fearing even to receive it then lest it announce the death 
of the loved ones. No telegraph, no railroad, no postal 
service, no newspaper might offer relief, only the letter 
brought by some friend, or the bit of news told by some 
passing traveller. It was a time of agonizing anxiety. 
There were months when the wife heard nothing; we 
have seen from the letters of Mrs. Adams that three 
months sometimes intervened between the letters from 
her husband. In 1774, when John Adams was at Phila- 



304 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

delphia, such a short distance from Boston, according to 
the modern conception, she wrote: " Five weeks have 
passed and not one Hne have I received. I would rather 
give a dollar for a letter by the post, though the conse- 
quences should be that I ate but one meal a day these 
three weeks to come."'' 

Again, these women faced actual dangers; for they 
were often near the firing line. John Quincy Adams 
says of his mother: " For the space of twelve months 
my mother with her infant children dwelt, liable every 
hour of the day and the night to be butchered in cold 
blood, or taken and carried into Boston as hostages. 
My mother lived in unintermitted danger of being con- 
sumed with them all in a conflagration kindled by a 
torch in the same hands which on the 17th of June 
[1775] lighted the fires of Charlestown. I saw with my 
own eyes those fires, and heard Britannia's thunders in 
the Battle of Bunker Hill, and witnessed the tears of my 
mother and mingled them with my own." 

In 1777 so anxious was the mother for news of her 
husband that John Quincy became post-rider for her 
between Braintree and Boston, eleven miles, — not a 
Ught or easy task for the nine-year-old boy, with the 
unsettled roads and unsettled times. Even the Presi- 
dent's wife was for weeks at a time in imminent peril; 
for the British could have desired nothing better than to 
capture and hold as a hostage the wife of the chief rebel. 
Washington himself was exceedingly anxious about her, 
and made frequent inquiry as to her welfare. She, 
however, went about her daily duties with the utmost 
calmness and in the hours of gravest danger showed 

• Letters, p. 15. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 305 

ilmost a stubborn disregard of the perils about her. 
tVashington's friend, Mason, wrote to him: " I sent my 
amily many miles back in the country, and advised 
Mrs. Washington to do Hkewise, as a prudential move- 
nent. At first she said ' No; I will not defeert my post' ; 
3ut she finally did so with reluctance, rode only a few 
niles, and, plucky little woman as she is, stayed away 
Dnly one night." ^° 

During the first years of the war nervous dread may 
lave composed the greater part of the suffering of 
'American women, but during the later years genuine 
lardships, lack of food and clothing, physical catastro- 
phes befell these brave but silent helpers of the patriots. 
Especially was this true in the South, where the British 
overran the country, destroyed homes, seized food, 
cattle, and horses, and left devastation to mark the trail, 
[n 1779 Mrs. Pinckney's son wrote her that Provost, 
the British leader, had destroyed the plantation home 
where the family treasure had been stored, and that 
everything had been burned or stolen; but her reply 
had no wail of despair in it: " My Dear Tomm: I have 
just received your letter with the account of my losses, 
and your almost ruined fortunes by the enemy. A 
severe blow! but I feel not for myself, but for you. 
. . . Your Brother's timely generous offer, to divide 
what little remains to him among us, is worthy of 
him. . . ."" 

The financial distress of Mrs. Pinckney might be cited 
as typical of the fate of many aristocratic and wealthy 
families of Virginia and South Carolina. Owner of 

'» Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 90. 
»' Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 265. 



306 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

many thousands of acres and a multitude of slaves, 
she was reduced to such straits that she could not meet 
ordinary debts. Shortly after the Revolution she wrote 
in reply to a request for payment of such a bill: " I 
am sorry I am under a necessity to send this unaccom- 
panied with the amount of my account due to you. It 
may seem strange that a single woman, accused of no 
crime, who had a fortune to live genteely in any part of 
the world, that fortune too in different kinds of property, 
and in four or five different parts of the country, should 
be in so short a time so entirely deprived of it as not to be 
able to pay a debt under 60 pound sterling, but such is 
my singular case. After the many losses I have met 
with for the last three or four desolating years from fire 
and plunder, both in country and town, I still had some- 
thing to subsist upon, but alas the hand of power has 
deprived me of the greatest part of that, and accident 
of the rest."i2 

It was indeed a day that called for the strongest type 
of courage, and nobly did the women face the crisis. 
In the South the wives and daughters of patriots were 
forced to appear at balls given by the invading forces, 
to entertain British officers, to act as hostesses to unbid- 
den guests, and to act the part pleasantly, lest the 
unscrupulous enemy wreak vengeance upon them and 
their possessions. The constant search on the part of 
the British for refugees brought these women moments 
when fear or even a second's hesitation would have 
proved disastrous. One evening Marion, the famous 
" Swamp-Fox," came worn out to the home of Mrs. 
Horry, daughter of Eliza Pinckney, and so completely 

" Eavenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 301. 



Colonial Wo7na7i and the Initiative 307 

ixhausted was he that he fell asleep in his chair while she 
vas preparing him a meal. Suddenly she heard the 
ipproaching British. She awakened him, told him to 
ollow the path from her kitchen door to the river, 
iwim to an island, and leave her to deceive the soldiers, 
jhe then met at the front door the British officer 
Carleton, who leisurely searehe4 the house, ate the 
supper prepared for Marion, and went away with several 
)f the family treasures and heirlooms. On another 
)ccasion when Mrs. Pinckney and her grand-daughter 
vere sleeping in their plantation home, distant from any 
leighbor, they were awakened by a beautiful girl who 
•ushed into the bedroom, crying, " Oh, Mrs. Pinckney, 
lave me! The British are coming after me." With the 
itmost calmness the old lady arose from her bed, placed 
;he girl in her place, and commanded, " Lie there, and 
10 man will dare to trouble you." She then met the 
Dursuers with such quiet scorn that they shrank away 
nto the darkness. 

What brave stories could be told of other women — 
Molly Stark, Temperance Wicke, and a host of others. 
IVhat man, soldier or statesman, could have written 
nore courageous words than these by Abigail Adams? 
' All domestic pleasures and enjoyments are absorbed 
n the great and important duty you owe your country, 
"or our country is, as it were, a secondary god, and the 
irst and greatest parent. It is to be preferred to parents, 
ivives, children, friends and all things, the gods only 
excepted, for if our country perishes, it is as impossible 
:o save the individual, as to preserve one of the fingers 
)f a mortified hand."^^ Mrs. Adams herself was literally 

" Letters, p. 74. 



308 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

in the midst of the warfare, and there were days when 
she could scarcely have faced more danger if she had 
been a soldier in the battle. Hear this bit of descrip- 
tion from her own pen: " I went to bed about twelve, 
and rose again a little after one. I could no more sleep 
than if I had been in the engagement ; the rattling of the 
windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of 
twenty-four pounders; and the bursting of shells give 
us such ideas, and realize a scene to us of which we could 
form scarcely any conception."^* 

Who can estimate the quiet aid such women gave the 
patriots in those years of sore trial? Such words as 
Martha Washington's " I hope you will all stand firm; ; 
I know George will," or the ringing language of Abigail ! 
Adams: " Though I have been called to sacrifice to my 
country, I can glory in my sacrifice and derive pleasure 
from my intimate connexion with one who is esteemed 
worthy of the important trust devolved upon him " — 
such words could but urge the fighting colonists to greater 
deeds of heroism. And many of the patriot husbands 
thoroughly appreciated the silent courage of their wives. 
John Adams, thinking upon the years of hardships his 
wife had so cheerfully undergone, how she had done a 
man's work on the farm, had fed and clothed the chil- 
dren, had kept the home intact, while he struggled for the 
new nation, wrote her: " You are really brave, my dear. 
You are a heroine and you have reason to be, for the 
worst that can happen can do you no harm. A soul as 
pure, as benevolent, as virtuous, and pious as yours has 
nothing to fear, but everything to hope from the last of j 
human evils." 

M Letters, p. 9. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 309 

Mercy Warren, too, though she might ridicule the 
weakness of her sex in Woman's Trifling Need, cheer- 
fully remained alone and unprotected while her husband 
went forth to battle; she was even thoughtful enough in 
those years of loneliness to keep a record of the stirring 
times — a record which was afterwards embodied into 
her History of the Revolution. Catherine Schuyler 
was another of those brave spirits that faced unflinch- 
ingly the horrors of warfare. When a bride of but one 
week, she saw her husband march away to the Indian 
war, and from girlhood to old age she was familiar with 
the meaning of carnage. Shortly after the Battle of 
Saratoga the entire country was aroused by the murder of 
Jane McCrea; women and children fled to the towns; 
refugees told of the coming of a host of British, Tories, 
and Indians. The Schuyler home lay in the path of the 
enemy, and in the mansion were family treasures and 
heirlooms dear to her heart. She determined to save 
these, and back she hastened from town to country. 
As she pushed on, multitudes of refugees begged her to 
turn back; but no appeal, no warning moved her. It 
was mid-summer, and the fields were heavy with ripe 
grain. Realizing that this meant food for the invaders, 
she resolved to burn all. When she reached her home 
she commanded a negro to light torches and descended 
w^ith him to the flats where the great fields of golden 
grain waved. The slave went a little distance, but his 
courage deserted him. " Very well," she exclaimed, 
" if you will not do it, I must do it myself." And with 
that she ran into the midst of the waving stalks, tossed 
the flaming torches here and there, and for a moment 
watched the flames sweep through the year's harvest. 



310 Woman's Life in Colonial Days 

Then, hurrying to the house, she gathered up her most 
valuable possessions, hastened away over the dangerous 
road, and reached Albany in safety. 

Within a few hours Burgoyne and his officers were 
making merry in the great house, drinking the Schuyler 
wine, and on the following day the mansion was burned 
to the ground. But fate played the British leader a 
curious trick; for within a few days Burgoyne found 
himself defeated and a guest in the Schuyler home at 
Albany. " I expressed my regret," he has testified, 
" at the event which had happened and the reasons which 
had occasioned it. He [Schuyler] desired me to think 
no more about it; said the occasion justified it, accord- 
ing to the rules and principles of war, and he should 
have done the same."^^ 

As Chastellux declared: "Burgoyne was extremely 
well received by Mrs. Schuyler and her little family. 
He was lodged in the best apartment in the house. An 
excellent supper was served him in the evening, the 
honors of which were done with so much grace that he 
was affected even to tears, and could not help saying 
with a deep sigh, ' Indeed, this is doing too much for a 
man who has ravished their lands and burnt their 
home.' "^^ Indeed, all thi'ough his stay in this house he 
and his staff of twenty were treated with the utmost 
courtesy by Catherine Schuyler. 

But was not this characteristic of so many of those 
better class colonial women? The inherent delicacy, 
refinement, and tact of those dames of long ago can be 
equalled only by their courage, perseverance, and loyalty 

15 Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 159. 
'8 Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 162. 



Colonial Woman and the Initiative 311 

in the hour of disaster. Whether in war or in peace they 
could remain cahii and self-possessed, and when given 
opportunity showed initiative power fully equaUing that 
of their more famous husbands. They could be valiant 
without losing refinement; they could bid defiance to 
the enemy and yet retain all womanliness. 

Is it not evident that woman was charmingly feminine, 
even in colonial days? Did she not possess essentially 
the same strengths and weaknesses as she does to-day? 
In general, accepting creeds more devoutly than did the 
men, as is still the case, often devouring greedily those 
writings which she thought might add to her education, 
yet more closely attached to her home than most modern 
women, the colonial dame frequently represented a 
strange mingling of superstition, culture, and delicate 
sensibilitJ^ Possessing doubtless a more whole-hearted 
reverence for man's ideas and opinions than does her 
modern sister, she seems to have kept her aspirations for 
a broader sphere of activity under rather severe restraint, 
and felt it her duty first of all to make the home a refuge 
and a consolation for the husband and father who 
returned in weariness from his battle with the world. 

She loved finery and adornment even as she does to- 
day; but under the influence of a burning patriotism she 
could and did crush all such longings for the beautiful 
things of this world. She had oftentimes genuine 
capacity for initiative and leadership; but pubHc senti- 
ment of the day fnduced her to stand modestly in the 
back-ground and allow the father, husband, or son to do 
the more spectacular work of the world. Yet in the 
hour of peril she could bear unflinchingly toil, hardships, 
and danger, and asked in return only the love and appre- 



312 Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 

ciation of husband and child. That she obtained such 
love and appreciation cannot be doubted. From the 
yellow manuscripts and the faded satins and brocades 
of those early days comes the faint flavor of romances as 
pathetic or happy as any of our own times, — quaint, 
old romances that tell of love and jealousy, happy unions 
or broken hearts, triumph or defeat in the activities of a 
day that is gone. Surely, the soul — especially that of a 
woman — changes but little in the passing of the 
centuries. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following books will be found of exceptional 
interest and value to readers who may wish to look 
further into the subject of woman's life in early America. 

Adams, A., Letters; Adams, H., Memoir; Adams, J., Writings; 
Allen, Woman^s Part in Government ; Alsop, Character of the Province 
of Maryland; American Nation Series; Andrews, Colonial Period; 
Anthony, Past, Present and Future Status of Woman; Avery, History 
of United States ; Beach, Daughters of the Puritans; Beard, Readings 
in American Government; Beverly, History of Virginia; Bliss, 
Side-Lights from the Colonial Meeting- House; Bradford, History of 
Plymouth Plantation; Bradstreet, Several Poems Compiled with 
Great Variety of Wit and Learning; Brooks, Dames and Daughters of 
Colonial Days; Brown, History of Maryland; Brown, Afercy PTarren; 
Bruce, Economic Forces in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century; 
Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in I7th Century; Bucking- 
ham, Reminiscences; Byrd, Writings; Cable, Strange, True Stories 
of Louisiana; Cairns, Early American Writings; Calef, More Won- 
ders of the Invisible World; Campbell, Puritans in Holland, England 
and America; Chastellux, Travels; Coffin, Old Times in the Colonies; 
Cooke, Virginia; Crawford, Romantic Days in the Early Republic; 
Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer; Drake, New England 
Legends; Draper, American Education; Duychinck, Cyclopedia of 
American Literature; Earle: Child Life in Colonial Days, Colonial 
Days in Old New York, Customs and Manners of Colonial Days, 
Home Life in Colonial Days, Margaret Winthrop, Sai)bath in Old 
NewEngland; Edwards, TForfcs; Firth, Stuart Tracts ; Fisher, Men, 
Women and Manners in Colonial Times; Fiske, Colonial Documents 
of New York; Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Old Virginia and Her 
Neighbors; Fithian, Selections from Writings; Franklin, Writings, 
ed. Smyth; Freeze, Historic Homes and Spots in Cambridge; Gar- 
den, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War; Goodwin, Dolly Madison; 



314 Woman''s Life in Colonial Days 

Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady; Griswold, Prose Writings of 
America; Hammond, Leah and Rachel; HoUiday, History of South- 
ern Literature, Three Centuries of Southern Poetry, Wit and Humor of 
Colonial Days; Hooker, Way of the Churches of New England; 
Howard, History of Matrimonial Institutions; Humphreys, Catherine 
Schuyler; Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay Colony; Jeffer- 
son, Writings, Ed. Ford; Johnson, Wonder Working Providence of 
Zion's Saviour in New Englayid; Josselyn, New England Rareties 
Discovered; Knight, Jour 7ial; Lawson, History of Carolina; Maclay, 
Journal; Masefield, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers; Mather, 
Diary, Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, Essay to do 
Good, Me7norable Providences, Wonders of the Divisible World; Nar- 
ratives of Early Maryland; Onderdonck, History of American Verse; 
Original Narratives of Early American History; Otis, American 
Verse; Peters, General History of Connecticut; Prince, Annals of 
New England; Pryor, Mother of Washington, and Her Times; 
Pynchon, Diary; Ravenel, Eliza Pinckney; Robertson, Louisiana 
under Spain, France, and United States; Rowlandson, Narrative of Her 
Captivity; Schrimacher, Modern Womaji's Rights; Sewall, Diary; 
Simons, Social Forces in American History; Smith, History of the 
Province of New York; Stith, History of the First Settlement of 
Virginia; Turell, Memoirs; Tompsou, N ev) England' s Crisis ; Tyler, 
American Literature in the Colonial Period; Uurtonbaker, Virginia 
Under the Stuarts; Vanderdonck, New Netherlands; Van Rens- 
selaer, Good Vrouw of Man-ha-ta; Ward, Simple Cobbler; Weeden, 
Economic and Social History of New England; Welde, Short Story 
of the Rise, Wane, and Ruin of the Antinomians; Wharton, Martha 
Washington; Wharton, Through Colonial Doorways; Wigglesworth, 
Day of Doom; Williams, Ballads of the American Revolution; Win- 
throp, History of New England; Wright, Industrial Evolution of the 
United States ; Woolman, Diary. 



INDEX 



Adams, Abigail, 66, 69, 72, 79, 82, 
92. 99, 100, 128, 131, 133, 134, 
138, 140, 142, 144, 148, 156, 164, 
229, 235, 244, 303, 307, 308. 

Adams, Hannah, 91, 92. 

Adams, John, 80, 90, 303, 308. 

Adultery, 261, 278, 279, 280, 281, 
282, 284, 285. 

Advice, Matrimonial, 277. 

Affairs, Domestic, 150. 

Alliott, Paul, 240. 

Americati Museum, 108. 

Amusements, 200, 213 (see Recrea- 
tions). 

Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War, 
275. 

Annals of New England, 5, 108. 

Antinomians, 41. 

Architecture, 179, 217. 

Arnold, Margaret, 145, 273. 

Art. 184. 

Attacks, Indian, 116. 

Attendance at Church, 19, 65. 

Autobiography (Franklin), 268. 



Banns, 201, 258. 

Baptism, 288. 

Beauty of Philadelphia Women, 

229. 
Bee, Husking. 208. 
Berquin-Duvallon. 239, 240, 242. 
Beverly, 178. 
Bible, 79. 
Bibliography, 313. 
Bigamy. 261. 
Blue Laws, 208. 
Boarding Schools, 87. 244. 
Bowne, Eliza, 170. 
Bradford, Governor, 6, 96. 
Bradstreet, Anne, 98, 99. 
Branding, 281, 282. 
Breach of Promise, 249. 
Brent, Margaret, 299. 
British Social Customs, 217. 



Buckingham's Reminiscences, 160. 

161. 
Bundling, 283. 
Bunyan. John. 4. 
Business, Women in, 132. 147. 
Byrd, William, 36, 102. 



Calef, Robert, 56, 60. 

Captivity of Mary Rowlandson, 

119. 
Card-Playing, 192, 219, 221, 228, 

231. 
Carolinas, 64, 65, 69, 74. 79, 87. 

105, 132, 174, 175, 183, 236, 246, 

270, 284. 305. 
Catholic Church. 69. 
Causes of Display, 222. 
Ceremony, Marriage, 258. 
Chastellux, 164, 179. 181, 228, 310. 
Children, 24, 28, 29, 31, 105, 114, 

116, 122, 124, 126, 141, 165, 166, 

206, 211, 213, 214, 215, 270. 
Christmas, 203, 204. 
Church Attendance, 19, 65. 
Church of England, 69. 
Colonial Woman and Religion, 3. 
Comfort in Religion, 38. 
Commercial Initiative, 293. 
Concord, 8. 

Connecticut, 90, 91. 154, 272, 283. 
Connecticut, General History of, 90. 
Consent for Courtship, 248. 
Conveniences, Lack of, 105. 
Cooking, 106, 107. 
Cooking Utensils, 108. 
Co-operation, 177. 
Cotton, John. 32. 34. 42, 43. 
Courtship, 136, 191, 221, 247, 248. 

251, 256, 269, 274, 276. 
Courtship, Consent for, 248. 
Courtship, Unlawful, 248. 
Crevecceur, St. John de, 301. 
Curiosity. 190. 
Custis. Nelly. 277. 
Customs in Louisiana, 238. 



316 



Woman^s Life in Colonial Days 



D 



Dame's School, 71, 94, 262, 294. 
Dancing, 52, 74, 85, 88, 89, 94. 183, 

186, 193, 200, 207, 220, 227, 229, 

232, 244, 260, 271. 
Day of Doom, 10, 11, 15. 
Day of Rest, 31. 
Death, 115. 
de Brahm, 66. 

de Crevecoeur, St. John, 301. 
de Warville, Brissot, 183, 219. 
Diary, Fithian's, 159. 
Diary, Mather's, 30. 
Diary, Sewall's, 14, 15, 28. 57, 63. 

71, 72, 115, 117, 125, 126, 129, 

133, 139, 155, 189, 190. 202. 203. 

207, 265, 280. 
Diary, Woolman's, 40. 
Display, Causes of, 222. 
Divorce, 263. 
Dolls as Models, 170. 
Domestic Happiness, 179. 186. 

210, 211, 270, 272, 288. 
Domestic Life, 136, 137. 
Domestic Love, 96. 
Domestic Pride, 111. 
Domestic Toil, 105, 116, 233, 272. 
Dowry, 250. 

Drama, 91, 92, 225, 234, 235. 
Drawing, 74, 94. 
Dress, 23, 33, 34, 89, 111, 133, 138, 

141, 142, 152, 153, 164, 167, 168. 

185, 218, 219, 220, 234, 243. 
Dress, Regulation by Law, 152, 

153. 
Dress, Ridicule of, 158, 171. 
Dryden, John, 4. 
Dutch, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 76, 154, 

174, 196, 209, 218, 219. 270, 284. 

288. 
Dyer, Mary. 292. 



E 



Education, 70, 84, 104, 116, 124, 
126, 128, 150, 175, 219, 244. 

Educational Advantages, Lack of, 
91, 92. 

Edwkrds, Jonathan, 10, 16, 18, 19, 
20, 98. 

Essay to Do Good, 39. 

Eternity of Hell Torments, 16. 

Etiquette, 74, 89. 225, 231. 



Executions, 197, 279, 280, 292. 
Extravagance, 164, 183, 185. 221, 
223, 229, 232, 234, 243. 



Feasts, Funeral, 196. 

Feminine Independence, 275. 

Fithian, Philip, 75, 159, 179. 

Foibles, Woman's, 33. 

Food, 106, 107, 139, 178, 185. 211, 

212, 216, 223, 260. 
Fox, George, 40. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 73, 74, 85, 86, 

101, 115, 132, 136, 138, 144, 147, 

155, 166, 233, 234, 268, 269. 286, 

287, 294. 
Frankhn, Mrs., 85, 147. 
Frills, Educational, 86. 
Funeral, 193, 196, 197, 216. 
Funeral Feasts, 196. 
Funeral Gloves, 194, 196. 
Funeral Rings, 194, 196. 
Funeral Scarfs, 194, 196. 
Furnishings, House, 106, 137, 181, 

218. 

G 

General History of Connecticut, 90, 

190, 207, 298. 
Georgia, 65. 

Gloves, Funeral, 194, 195. 
Grant's Memoirs of an American 

Lady, 67, 68, 72, S3, 127, 209. 

211, 213, 217, 270. 



H 



Hair Dressing, 162. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 104, 130. 

134, 145. 287. 
Hamilton, Elizabeth, 104, 145, 

273. 
Hammond, John, 177, 271. 
Happiness, Domestic, 143, 144, 

145, 179, 186, 210, 211, 270, 272. 

288 

Hardships, 3, 6, 7, 8, 115, 117, 118, 

303, 305, 306, 308. 
Harvard, 79. 
Heroism, 309. 

History of Massachusetts Bay 
Colony, 39, 42. 43. 



Index 



317 



History of New England, 24, 48, 

142, 198. 
History of North Carolina, 132. 
History of Plymouth Plantation, 6. 
History of the Dividing Line, 36. 
History of the Province of New 

York, 218. 
History of Virginia, 178. 
Home Life, 95, 124, 128. 132, 133, 

134, 136, 137, 140, 145, 149. 
Hoop Petticoats, 161. 
Hospitality, 174, 182, 186, 188, 

213, 215. 
House Furnishings, 106, 137, 181, 

218. 
Huguenots, 65. 
Husking Bee, 208. 
Hutchinson, Anne, 39, 40, 41, 42, 

43, 57. 291, 292. 
Hutchinson, Margaret, 162. 



Ignorance, 70, 76, 78, 94, 244. 
niustrious Providences, 26, 27. 
Indented Servants, 271, 279, 284. 
Independence, Feminine, 275. 
Indian Attacks, 116. 
Inherited Nervousness, 28. 
Initiative, 85, 147, 291, 293, 303. 
Inquisitiveness, 190. 
Interest in Home, 136. 
Irregular Marriage, 278. 
Irving, Washington, 283. 
Isolation, Southern, 174. 



Jamestown, 5, 65, 174. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 74, 75, 138, 

143, 287. 
Johnson, Edward, 7, 8. 
Jonson, Ben, 4. 

Josselyn, John, 49, 205, 286, 289. 
Journal, Fox's, 40. 
Journal, Knight's, 206, 210, 212. 
Journal, Winthrop's, 34. 



Kidnapping, 122. 
Knickerbocker Histovy, 283. 
Knight, Sarah, 154, 206, 210. 212. 



Laws, 278, 286, 288, 289, 297. 

Laws, Blue, 208. 

Laws, Marriage, 260. 

Laws, Regulation of Dress by, i 

152, 153. 
Lawson, John, 132. 
Leah and Rachel, 177. 
Lecture Day, 201. 
Legal Powers of Women, 297. 
Letters, 187. 273, 277. 
Letters from an American Farmer, 

301. 
Letters of Abigail Adams, 67. 
Liberty to Choose in Marriage, 

255. 
Life, Domestic, 136, 137, 139. 
Life of Cotton Mather, 124. 
Louisiana, 69, 183, 238. 
Love, Domestic, 96-102, 273. 
Luxury, 176, 211, 212, 217, 218, 

219, 229, 232, 234. 

M 

Madison, Dolly, 168, 269, 297. 
Marriage, 247, 286. 
Marriage Advice, 277. 
Marriage Ceremony, 258. 
Marriage Irregularities, 278. 
Marriage, Liberty to Choose in, 

255. 
Marriage Restrictions, 260, 279. 
Marriage, Romance in, 272. 
Maryland, 69, 174. 
Mather, Cotton, 10, 16, 21, 30, 39, 

50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 88, 115, 124. 
Mather, Increase, 26, 27, 52, 55. 
Mather, Samuel, 124. 
McKean, Sally, 170. 
Mechanical Aids in Education, 90. 
Memoirs of an American Lady, 67, 

68, 209, 217. 
Memoirs of Hannah Adams, 91, 92. 
Memorable Providences, 21. 
Memorial of the Present Deplorable 

State, 117. 
Men's Dress, 167. 
Meschianza, 168, 227. 
Methodists, 65, 68. 
Milton, John, 4. 
Morals, 238. 



318 



Woma7i's Life in Colonial Days 



Moravians, 87, 269. 

More Wonders of the Invisible 

World, 56, 60. 
Mothers, Tributes to, 129. 
Music, 34, 35, 74, 85, 86, 88, 94, 

179, 184, 193, 219, 244, 296. 



N 



Negroes, 105, 240, 241, 284. 

Nervousness, 22, 25, 28. 

New England History and General 
Register, 59. 

New England's Crisis, 301. 

New England's Raretics Discov- 
ered, 49, 205. 

New York, 64, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 
76. 94, 107, 127, 154, 167, 174, 
209, 216, 217, 221, 246, 270, 284, 

Norwood, Henry, 3. 

O 

Orphans' Court, 77. 

P 

Parental Training, 124. 
Patriotic Initiative, 303. 
Pennsylvania, 64, 78, 87, 88, 109, 

236, 268. 
Pennsylvania Packet, 109. 
Peters, Samuel, 90, 190, 207, 298. 
Petticoats, Hoop, 161. 
Philadelphia, 167, 168, 226, 229, 

230, 235, 286, 294. 
Pinckney, Eliza, 65, 69, 80, 102, 

126, 134, 145, 164, 175, 181, 182, 

184, 244, 255, 295, 305. 
Pintard, James, 220. 
Plymouth, 5, 6, 71, 79. 
Politics, 143, 144, 293, 299. 
Prayers for the Sick, 201. 
Presbyterians, 65. 
Pride, Domestic, 111. 
Prince, Thomas, 5. 
Privations, 114, 115, 149 (see 

Hardships) . 
Progress of Dulness, 172. 
Public Affairs, Women in, 142. 
Punishment, 247, 248, 261, 278, 

282, 285, 2S6, 289, 292. 
Pynchon, Judge, 192, 193, 260. 



Quakers, 40, 68, 268, 292, 293. 

R 

Raillery at Dress, 158. 
Rebellion, Female, 41. 
Recreation, 91, 178, 189, 193, 200, 

207, 213, 220, 222, 225, 226, 232, 

234, 235, 237, 260, 263, 270, 272. 
Religion, 3, 10, 63, 100, 115, 189, 

212, 293, 298. 
Religion, Comfort in, 38. 
Religious Initiative, 291. 
Remarkable Providences, 55. 
Reminiscences, Buckingham's, 160, 

161. 
Restrictions, Marriage, 260. 
Restrictions, Social, 205. 
Ridicule of Dress, 158, 171. 
Rings, Funeral, 194, 196. 
Romance, Marriage, 272. 
Rowlandson, Mary, 119. 
Rowson, Susanna, 87. 



Sabbath, 31-33, 65. 

Salem Witchcraft, 41. 47-63. 

Scarf, Funeral, 194, 196. 

Scarlet Letter, 281. 

School, Boarding, 87, 244. 

Schuyler, Catherine, 73, 91, 106, 
110. 115, 134, 145, 244, 309, 310. 

Seminary, Female, 87, 94, 166. 

Separations, 263. 

Servant. Indented, 271, 279, 284. 

Sewall. Samuel. 14, 15, 28, 57, 71, 
72, 96, 115, 117, 124, 125, 126, 
129, 133, 138, 147, 152, 155, 189, 
190, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 207, 
247, 250, 251, 256, 258, 263, 265, 
279, 280, 293. 294. 

Sewing, 93, 110. 

Shakespeare, 4, 5. 

Short Story of the Rise, Wane, and 
Ruin of the Antinomians, 47. 

Simple Cobbler, 158. 

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry 
God, 18. 

Size of Family, 114. 

Slaves, 65, 105, 110, 112, 175, 245, 
284. 



Index 



319 



Smith, John, 4, 64. 

Smith, William, 218. 

Social Customs, British, 217. 

Social Life, 113, 174, 181, 189, 209, 

219, 225, 226, 231, 232, 235, 236, 

237, 238, 270. 
Social Restrictions, 205. 
Southern Dress, 153. 
Southern Hospitality, 174. 
Southern Isolation, 174. 
Southgate, Elizabeth, 225. 
Speech, Violent, 287. 
Special Social Days, 201. 
Sphere, Woman's, 142. 
Spinsters, 262. 
Spirit of Woman, 3. 
Splendor in Southern Home, 179. 
St. Cecilia Society, 184. 
Surrage, Agnes, 274. 



Temple, Charlotte, 87. 
Thanksgiving, 203, 205. 
Theatre, 234, 235 (see Drama). 
Thompson, Benjamin, 301. 
Toil, Domestic, 105, 107, 108, 111, 

113, 116, 135, 136, 150. 
Training, Parental, 124. 
Travel, 187. 

Travels, Chastellux, 164. 
Trials, 197. 

Tributes to Mothers, 129. 
Trumbull, John, 171. 
Turell, Jane, 82, 130, 134, 145, 277. 

U 

Unlawful Courtship, 240. 
Utensils, Cooking, 108. 



Violent Speech, 287. 

Virginia, 64, 68, 69, 71, 74, 77, 79, 

94, 105, 166, 167, 174, 176, 183. 

236, 246, 270, 271, 289, 305. 
Voyage to Virginia, 3. 

W 

Ward, Nathaniel, 158. 

Warren, Mercy, 67, 69, 79, 83, 

100, 101, 134, 145, 309. 
Washington, George, 96, 101, 104, 

139, 165, 167, 175, 183, 186, 187, 

222, 223, 232, 235, 277, 297. 
Washington, Martha, 67, 80, 101, 

104, 112, 134, 135, 140, 141, 164, 
165, 169, 183, 186, 187, 188, 220, 

223, 225, 233, 297, 304, 308. 
Weddings, 247, 286. 

Welde, Thomas, 46. 

Wesleys, 65. 

Whitefield, George, 65. 

Why Saints in Glory will Rejoice 

to see the Torments of the Damned, 

19. 
Wigglesworth, Michael, 10. 
Williams, Roger, 34. 
Winthrop, John. 23, 24, 26, 34, 37. 

39, 44, 48, 88, 96, 142, 145, 198. 

279 288 
Winthrop, Margaret, 9, 39, 97, 134. 
Witchcraft, 41, 47-63, 294. 
Woman's Trifling Needs, 309. 
Women in Politics, 293, 299. 
Wonders of the Invisible World, 21, 
50, 51, 56, 58. 

Wonder-Working Providence, 7. 
Woolman, John, 40. 
Work, Domestic, 105, 107, 108, 

111, 113, 114, 116, 135, 136, 150. 



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